Anticor files a complaint “in the face of the inertia of public authorities”

“Faced with the inertia of public authorities”the Anticor association announced, Tuesday, November 12, that it had filed a complaint in Paris for scams and embezzlement of public funds against the group of private crèches People & Baby, highlighted in an investigation by journalist Victor Castanet.

“It seemed necessary to us to act”explained Paul Cassia, president of the anti-corruption association, during a press conference Tuesday morning in Paris. “The starting point of this affair is the book by Victor Castanet on the management of a company which manages private crèches”People & Baby, he continued.

In his investigative book The Ogres (Flammarion), released in mid-September, the investigative journalist described the “voracity” of certain private nursery groups, and in particular the People & Baby group. “The public authorities remained silent” et, “However, this scandal concerns questions of child abuse but also labor law”according to Mr. Cassia.

The association's lawyer, M^e Vincent Brengarth, detailed the different qualifications targeted by the complaint “in the particular context of these crèches which benefit (…) public aid from the State » and the “lack of number of nursery places”.

Scams and embezzlement of public funds

Anticor first accused People & Baby of various scams and embezzlement of public funds, notably that of “of the allowance paid for partial unemployment” during the Covid-19 epidemic, having used this device while “At least 300 executives would have continued to work”according to M.^e Brengarth.

Other offenses are alleged, “relating to the falsification of the actual presence of children placed in crèche”which triggers public aid, or fraud in work aid, again according to the lawyer.

Finally, Anticor mentions a possible abuse of social property due to the multiple hats of the former founder and president, Christophe Durieux, who managed People & Baby but also real estate companies renting premises to the group's crèches with, according to M^e Brengarth, des “possible overcharging of rent”. The amount of money embezzled would be “at least 2.1 million euros, a figure which only concerns partial unemployment aid fraud”he said. “Despite the seriousness of the behavior revealed by Victor Castanet, at this stage there has still been no self-referral to the courts or an initiative investigation despite all the malpractices revealed. This questions us to the highest point”he insisted, asking for an investigation.

M^e Brengarth expressed his hope for an extension of a possible procedure to “other operators” private nurseries “who can perfectly be concerned”even to “impacts that these behaviors may have had on the treatment of children”.

“Democratic consequences”

Next to crèches “high quality, supported by in-depth educational thinking”we also find “establishments of very poor quality”noted the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) in a report published after the death of an 11-month-old baby in a private nursery in Lyon in 2022.

For Inès Bernard, general delegate of Anticor, these offenses “have democratic and social consequences that are sometimes extremely important (…). The question arises of the granting of so many subsidies without any control”.

Currently, France has 460,000 collective childcare places, of which 50% are in public crèches, 27% in private crèches (Les Petits Chaperons rouge, Babilou, La Maison bleue, People & Baby, etc.) and 23 % of association crèches.

In a press release sent in mid-September to Agence France-Presse, People & Baby – from which Christophe Durieux was ousted in the spring – affirmed that “the practices described in the work” by Mr. Castanet “are totally out of step with the values ​​we hold today”. The new management of the group claimed to have “started a profound transformation” with a new president, and promised to correct “without delay” All “malfunction that could be identified”. “Independent audits” will be set up, and the group « [va s’]engag[er] to report transparently on the actions implemented and their monitoring”added People & Baby.