Far-left parliamentarian and candidate for Mayor of Paris, Sophia Chikirou, will stand trial later this year over allegations that she committed fraud against a media company in 2018.
Chikirou, 46, who has represented the 6th constituency of Paris in the National Assembly since 2022 for the far-left La France Insoumise (France in Rebellion/LFI) party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, will stand trial before the 13th Criminal Chamber of the Paris Judicial Court in May, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.
She is reportedly accused of having in 2018 “attempted on several occasions to defraud the Crédit du Nord bank” to the detriment of the Le Média production company, which she co-founded, in order to obtain over 67,000 euros ($78,000) fraudulently.
According to a judicial source cited by the AFP, Chikirou is said to have presented herself as the president of the company when she “no longer held that position” to obtain the funds. She is also accused of having “fraudulently removed two check books”.
The accusations come on top of a separate fraud case involving Chikirou, who was indicted last year over alleged “aggravated fraud” in relation to the 2017 presidential campaign of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for which she served as communications director. She has denied the charges.
The Algerian-heritage LFI MP claimed Sunday that the two parties involved in the latest case against her have already reached an agreement and thus accused the Paris prosecutor’s office in attempting to “smear and hinder” her mayoral campaign to replace outgoing Socialist Anne Hidalgo.
Chikirou has long courted controversy during her time at the heart of the far-left party, including for allegedly being romantically involved with party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is nearly thirty years her senior.
Last year, she was a main subject of the exposé book The pack: Investigation into Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise, authored by journalists Charlotte Belaïch of the Libération newspaper and Olivier Pérou of Le Monde.
The book, which detailed the cultish and cutthroat inner workings of the radical LFI party, claimed that Chikirou’s position is central to the clannish ecosystem, allegedly using her position as Mélenchon’s lover to enact purges of her perceived rivals within the party.
She was also accused of going on frequent tirades and of engaging in antisemitism. Chikirou is quoted in the book as denouncing two former Mélenchonist activists as a “couple of little Jews who are going to take my money”.
Chikirou has likened her campaign in Paris to that of fellow radical leftist Zohran Mamdani in New York City, saying in November that if elected, she would implement his policies of “tackling the rich, speculation, making public transportation free, supporting Palestine, and giving a voice to workers against gentrification.”
The far-left MP is currently a long shot in the race, however, with a recent poll putting her candidacy at 12 per cent, trailing behind Green Party candidate David Belliard at 13, Macronist candidate Pierre-Yves Bournazel at 14 per cent, Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire at 20 per cent, and centre-right Les Républicains candidate Rachida Dati at 26 per cent.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.