Sophia Chikirou heard by judges within the 2017 LFI marketing campaign accounts case | EUROtoday

As the parliamentary session looms, Sophia Chikirou had an appointment with the investigating judges, as famous The WorldTuesday, September 24. At the top of her listening to, the Paris MP, re-elected within the first spherical on the finish of June, might be notified of a indicted for “aggravated fraud” within the case of the 2017 La France Insoumise marketing campaign accounts.

The courts primarily accuse her of getting invoiced, by means of her firm Mediascop, companies with margins a lot increased than these of different professionals within the sector. However, any bill increased than the market worth is prohibited, as a result of the companies offered as a part of the campaigns are topic to reimbursement by the State, generally modulated following the management of the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Financing. Facts that she strongly disputes.

The “rebellious” elected official had already been summoned for indictment in August 2022, however the assembly had been postponed by the protection for scheduling causes: M^me Chikirou had simply been elected as a member of parliament for Paris for the primary time. Unless she requested the lifting of her parliamentary immunity, the courts couldn’t drive her to attend these conferences.

Charging – on the highest finish of the market worth – for the work of volunteers or low-paid workers has lengthy been utilized by left-wing events to finance themselves within the absence of main donors. The reimbursement by the State of those companies was used to fill a slush fund in preparation for an upcoming election.

Exception

During the 2017 marketing campaign, Mediascop, the second largest marketing campaign service supplier with €1.16 million invoiced, was an exception among the many service suppliers of the “insoumis”. According to an accounting professional commissioned by the courts, Sophia Chikirou paid herself, along with her remuneration as director of Mediascop, nearly all the earnings from this marketing campaign in bonuses and dividends, i.e. €64,000 in gross dividends out of the €76,000 in earnings generated by her firm in 2016 and €65,000 for the 12 months 2017.

Can this exception be defined by Sophia Chikirou's a number of roles throughout this marketing campaign? The “rebel” was each the pinnacle of the service supplier Mediascop, but in addition the marketing campaign's communications director – and subsequently a shopper of its firm – and really near the chief of the “rebels”, Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Their intermittent romantic relationship – recognized to celebration officers since 2011 – was unknown to most people till October 16, 2018, when investigators who got here to go looking Jean-Luc Mélenchon's house at daybreak discovered her there.

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