CORALIE DUBOST. The LREM deputy from Hérault announces her retirement from political life on May 2. In question, the revelations of Médiapart on its mismanagement and its excessive expenses with the parliamentary portfolio. The case has apparently cast a chill within LREM.
[Mis à jour le 2 mai 2022 à 17h01] By spending too much, Coralie Dubost has lost everything. The member for Hérault encarte La République en Marche and described as the rising star of the party after only five years of politics announces her retirement from political life on May 2 in a letter posted on Twitter. The Montpellier woman could have continued her ascent if she had better managed her parliamentary portfolio. Because more than a personal choice – the deputy confided her “desire to leave” to Free lunch on April 6 – it is the publication of a Mediapart survey on April 29, which forced the elected official to abandon her parliamentary ambitions. The newspaper reveals figures and report of the ethics officer of the National Assembly in support that the advances of expenses of mandates granted to Coralie Dubost were used for personal purposes more than parliamentary yet the deputy denies or denies having repaired her faults. In her letter, she denounces “unjust attacks which serve [son] political group, electoral deadlines and more generally democracy”, also in order not to undermine LREM and avoid becoming an “instrument of an anti-parliamentary cabal”, Coralie Dubost indicates that she will not run again in the third constituency of Hérault during the legislative elections next June.
According to the newspaper’s investigation, the monthly mandate fee advances of €5,373 given to the delegate president of the majority group, as to all the deputies, were more often used for the personal expenses of Coralie Dubost than for the financing of parliamentary projects: shopping for clothes, getaways to the beach and to high-end places to relax are singled out. This is not the first time that Coralie Dubost has been singled out by the ethics officer of the National Assembly for the mismanagement and especially the misuse of the parliamentary budget. The revelations about the MP’s practices come a few weeks before the legislative elections and cut short the elected official’s desire to return to a new term, especially since the affair would have cast a chill over the ranks of the MPs of the majority
In addition to the astronomical bills of the deputy, which she claims to have partially reimbursed, it is also the behavior of Coralie Dubost vis-à-vis her collaborators who are called into question. The report mentions “inappropriate requests” relating to the private sphere made by Coralie Dubost to her parliamentary team. Facts that politics deny.
Why does Coralie Dubost leave politics?
Elected in 2017 under the label of La République en Marche to sit in the National Assembly, Coralie Dubost, since delegate president of the majority group, will not try her luck again in June 2022. The end of her mandate as deputy also marks the end of the political career of the young woman at least for a time. She explains that she wants to “step back from political life”, a decision mainly motivated by accusations and revelations about these abusive and personal expenses made with the parliamentary portfolio which taint her mandate. “I refuse to be the instrument of an anti-parliamentary cabal, in the same way that I refuse to lend myself to a ping-pong of justifications which border on a phantasmagoric lynching”, she indicates to explain her goodbye to the National Assembly without mentioning the revelations of Mediapart.
MP LREM puts forward her pregnancy as another reason for leaving politics. At 39, Coralie Dubost is expecting her first child and says she wants to keep him away from the media. She would rather “protect the child than[elle] bears all the vicissitudes of exposure and political life”. Besides, the former companion of Olivier Véran does not extend on his private life with his new spouse, a certain Stanislas. of her departure from political life, the elected official indicates that she lost her father two months ago and regrets not having “devoted more time to her last breaths, I want to devote peaceful ones to those of my newborn .”
Clothing and restaurants, excessive spending
The deputy of Hérault has for five years benefited from the monthly allowance of deputy of 7 239.91€ and the advances of expenses of mandate (AFM) of 5 373€ delivered there again every month by the National Assembly. If the first amount can be used for personal purchases, this is not the case for the second amount exclusively reserved for expenses related to the exercise of the mandate of deputy. The ethics officer of the National Assembly admits that among his expenses may include “reasonable” clothing purchases, in particular for costumes or shoes likely to be used within the framework of the mandate. However, the amounts spent by the parliamentarian regularly exceeding 2,500 euros until 2019 and included in a “range ranging from 1,500 to 2,000 euros” according to the April 2021 report have largely exceeded the framework. “There are mandate outfits and personal outfits […]I do not put the same business in my personal life and in my life of mandate”, explained Coralie Dubost to Mediapartan argument not convincing enough for the taste of the National Assembly.
In the viewfinder of the ethics officer are also reservations made in seaside establishments and other high-end leisure venues. Lunches and afternoons spent at the edge of the water or a swimming pool within the framework of “appointment of mandate”, justifies the elected official who describes “times of work as of team building as a team”. According to the report of the ethics officer submitted to the Assembly, the comfortable advances of mandate expenses were not enough to finance the standard of living of Coralie Dubost who had recourse to “applications for additional loans” to fill overdrafts of several thousand euros, particularly in 2017 and 2019. It was with the Banque Postale, in charge of all the AFM accounts of parliamentarians, that the deputy took out these loans, claiming that she was carrying out new fictitious work in her office, still according to Mediapart.
Expenses all reimbursed?
The abusive use of the parliamentary budget brought to light by Mediapart are in fact those observed and listed by the ethics officer of the National Assembly in April 2021. But this is not the first time that the elected official has been called to order for her excessive and unreasonable expenses. In 2018 and 2019, the ethics officer had already noted unjustifiable abuses, in particular in October 2018 with a record of 3,300 euros spent on clothing on online sales sites, but also in brands such as Sézane or The Kopples in the previous months or again with lingerie brands. The deputy presented these costs as “cash advances, when you need something at the last minute and you do not have your personal card on you”.
Coralie Dubost assures the newspaper that she has reimbursed all undue costs after her consecutive checks in 2018 and 2019. What about the expenses incurred in 2020 and 2022? Presumably the elected is currently in the process of reimbursing part of the costs but she refuses to specify the amount which she has already paid. She says she has “taken out a personal loan” to clear the slate with the National Assembly.
Parliamentary assistants assigned to “domestic tasks”
Confusing parliamentary and private spending was not Coralie Dubost’s only mistake. The elected official also maintained the vagueness between the professional and personal sphere with her collaborators. Former employees of the parliamentarian indicated that they had to “monitor [son] household staff” or “performing household chores [à son] home”. Tasks “relevant to the personal sphere or at the limit of the professional and personal spheres regularly requested, and not falling within the recurrent, normal and expected attributions of a position of collaborator and collaborator of a deputy” according to the report. Questioned on these points, the elected representative of Hérault says she has no memory: “It tells me absolutely nothing, you are talking to me about a period that is over”.
Other parliamentary assistants have denounced the remarks and behavior “demeaning” of the MP towards them. The report of the ethics officer specifies that at the HR firm the former employees complained of “paradoxical injunctions”, of “contradictory instructions”, of a “disordered and confused management of time” and finally of a “very difficult” dialogue. with Coralie Dubost. Remarks reassembled in different terms by five assistants out of the fifteen hired by the deputy in five years. It is these reports that are at the origin of the investigation by the anti-harassment cell and then by the ethics officer on the actions of the deputy.
The Coralie Dubost affair casts a chill within LREM?
A few weeks before the legislative elections in which Coralie Dubost apparently intended to stand again, the revelations about the deputy come at the wrong time, especially for La République en Marche which fears to suffer from this affair. During her term as a member of parliament, the elected official rose through the ranks to become deputy vice-president of the LREM group in the National Assembly in September 2021. She distinguished herself as a voice of the majority, including on the draft bioethics law, PMA for all or the Pact law. His presence was also noticed on television sets to defend the positions of La République en Marche. However, after the announcements of Mediapart and according to The world, Coralie Dubost received very few messages of support from her parliamentary colleagues while the unease in the ranks of the majority was very present. Do the deputies fear that the case will harm them during the elections on June 12 and 19? One thing is certain Coralie Dubost will not be with them for the next five-year term. Since Saturday, LREM activists have been actively looking for a replacement for the deputy to run for the legislative elections in the third constituency of Hérault.