LFI MP Sophia Chikirou should be heard by the courts as part of a possible indictment for “aggravated fraud”. Within the party, the affair created some turbulence.
La France insoumise has been in full tumult since the publication of various investigations in the media targeting MP Sophia Chikirou. According to Le Monde, the Paris MP will surely be heard by the courts with a view to being indicted for “aggravated fraud”. Sophia Chikirou is one of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s most present collaborators since his campaign for the 2017 presidential election and it is precisely the latter’s role during the campaign that raises questions.
The elected official and her communications agency Mediascop are suspected of having overcharged for services during Mélenchon’s presidential campaign in 2017. The former communications director is said to have deliberately inflated campaign invoices in order to then have them reimbursed by the State. Between September 2016 and April 2017, Sophia Chikirou requested 1,161,000 euros for her services ranging from events to media strategy and, according to Le Monde, which had access to legal expertise, the MP would have recovered “almost all of the profits of the 2017 campaign in bonuses and dividends. Journalist Sylvain Tronchet, from the Radio France investigation unit, noted a certain number of abuses.
Within the party, the investigation and possible indictment of the elected official rekindles tensions. If Sophia Chikirou denies any abuse since the start of the affair, certain LFI bigwigs have strongly criticized the MP’s methods, but always anonymously. Le Monde writes that it had access to certain documents which describe Sophia Chikirou’s strategies as “a mixture of brutality and financial management of sometimes questionable legality, lasting, according to her detractors, thanks to her status as ‘wife of the boss’, a expression used by rebellious executives”.
The sentimental relationship that the MP maintains with the head of LFI was revealed to the public in 2018. She has since remained a personality in Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s close guard and has risen in rank: becoming president of the group in the Assembly national in 2021, before becoming coordinator of activist mobilization in 2022. The facts with which she is accused date from 2017, when she played a major role in working-class neighborhoods where she became an indispensable personality representing Jean-Claude’s party. Luc Mélenchon during his campaign.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s confidant is the subject of various criticisms outside the framework of the legal investigation for fraud. After the 2017 presidential elections, Sophia Chikirou launched into the creation of a web TV, Le Média, which was born in January 2018. Very quickly, the management methods and the activist editorial design of the elected official became the subject of strong criticism. From the first months after the launch, many journalists expressed signs of distrust towards the media and its creator. His position was quickly compromised and management requested his departure. A commercial dispute with Le Média followed.
Sophia Chikirou made bad press again in 2022, when she gave her public support to Adrien Quatennens who, caught in a case of domestic violence, admitted to having slapped and exerted pressure on his wife. During the return of the Northern MP to the National Assembly, the speaker stood up to applaud her colleague.
