Required to declare donations and invitations received throughout the year, our elected officials are not all in the same boat. Anthology of gifts received by the deputies elected last July.
For the deputies of the 17th legislature, Santa Claus came a little early. Elected last July, they must demonstrate transparency, by regularly communicating the gifts received throughout the year, like their predecessors. And, as our colleagues at Politico noted in an article published this week, the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games were the occasion for numerous donations to parliamentarians.
In France, as a reminder, gifts to MPs are obviously regulated by law and recipients are subject to an obligation of transparency. Elected officials must declare donations received when their value exceeds 150 euros, in order to avoid any conflict of interest. Travel funded by third parties must also be reported. However, the rule only applies to gifts that could create a conflict of interest, and not to all gifts received. Which explains in particular why the declarations of the deputies take up only a few pages, as Politico points out.
Accessible to all, the list of gifts received by deputies is therefore not exhaustive, but it contains some surprises. The Paris Olympic Games (JOP) were particularly favorable to offerings made to parliamentarians, with thirteen gifts declared in August and ten in September, compared to three on average the rest of the year. Our elected officials, however, encountered more or less equal treatment. The Hauts-de-Seine MP Philippe Juvin (LR), member of the Finance Commission, regional councilor and metropolitan councilor, for example received thirteen places for seven JOP events, from the Métropole du Grand Paris. Others, like Annaïg Le Meur, Agnès Firmin Le Bodo or Jean-François Rousset, also received places. Stéphane Mazars was also invited by France Télévisions to attend the athletics events in gratitude for his “involvement in the preparation of the JOP Paris 2024 under the 16th legislature, especially within the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education”he declares.
Chips, concerts and books
Among the other spoiled elected officials, the MP for the 3rd constituency of Loire-Atlantique, Ségolène Amiot, notably obtained a JOP and RadioFrance flocked t-shirt, as well as two books on the occasion of the Games: “Sport, a women’s story?”by Camille Andrieu, and “Sport and Politics, the important thing is to participate”published by the Political and Parliamentary Review. For their part, Sylvain Maillard and Anaïg Le Meur were able to attend Mylène Farmer's last concert at the Stade de France, while Constance Le Grip was invited by France Télévisions to Paul McCartney's concert at La Défense arena. Sports fans are not left out either, since rebellious Carlos Martens Bilongo received tickets to a football match “between Monaco and Angers in a VIP box”when his colleague (EPR) Françoise Buffet was able to attend a match at the Parc des Princes, invited by PSG.
More surprising but less exotic, in October, the deputy for Ille-et-Vilaine, Tristan Lahais, received seven packets of chips estimated at 15 euros from the Brets company. Zealous, the elected official specifies in his declaration of ethics that he wants to keep them “for the long PLF exam evenings”without having touched it: “So you can recover them if necessary”. Finally, the rebellious vice-president of the National Assembly, Clémence Guetté, received two travel bags from the ADP group, as well as… two bottles of water, from the Île-de-France Water Union.
Oars for senators
MPs are not the only ones to declare certain gifts for the sake of transparency. A similar procedure exists for their counterparts in the upper house. If they had not been in odd numbers, the members of the senatorial mission to Polynesia, for example, would have almost been able to row home last April. Five senators received a traditional Polynesian oar from the President of the Union for the Promotion of Communes of French Polynesia, as part of the information mission on the institutional and administrative situation and justice in French Polynesia. A reference to va'a, this king sport in Tahiti and the rest of the Polynesian islands, very anchored in the local culture. Embarked in an outrigger canoe inspired by the traditional canoe, the rowers set off alone, in groups of three, six or twelve in races ranging from 500 meters to 150 km for the long events.
Other elected officials, such as mayors, are not subject to any specific rules on gifts, but of course remain required to respect the law on corruption and can be sanctioned if it is proven that a gift results in a favor in return, or if the estimated amounts reach peaks. As in the case of Jack Lang, for example, who received costumes with a value then estimated at 500,000 euros between 2013 and 2018. It was, however, justified that these gifts were not linked to any direct consideration, but rather has “elegance known throughout the world” of the former Minister of Culture, as specified by the luxury brand Smalto. Especially since Jack Lang was no longer in office at the time, but had already joined the Arab World Institute.
