MP Sophia Chikirou, candidate for La France insoumise for Paris town hall, will be tried for fraud to the detriment of the news site Le Média. Scheduled for May 12 before the Paris criminal court, this trial will look into alleged acts committed in July 2018.
Sophia Chikirou is suspected of having “attempted on several occasions to deceive the Crédit du Nord bank” to the detriment of the production company Le Média, with the aim of being given a sum of more than 67,000 euros, said a judicial source. In this case, the investigators highlighted “the beginning of execution” on the part of Sophia Chikirou, continues the same source: the accused is accused of having presented herself as president of the company Le Média, when she “no longer had this quality”, and of having requested transfers, ultimately unsuccessful in particular because there was not enough money in the account. Sophia Chikirou must also appear for having “fraudulently removed two check forms”.
AFP learned this Sunday from a judicial source that this trial was being held before the 13th criminal chamber of the Paris judicial court. The hearing follows a preliminary investigation led by the financial section of the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime (Junalco).
“The only purpose of the affair is to sully and hinder my campaign”
The hearing of the trial made Sophia Chikirou jump this Sunday, who announced in November that she was a candidate for mayor of Paris. Elections will be held in March. “The Paris prosecutor’s office has decided to put me on trial in the middle of the municipal campaign regarding a story dating from 2018 which relates to a commercial dispute between two companies,” reacted Sophia Chikirou to AFP. “Since that date, the two companies have agreed to an agreement and stopped all their efforts,” she said. “It is therefore a trial decided by the public prosecutor for a case where there is no complainant or prejudice! The affair is eminently political and only aims to sully and hamper my campaign,” she lambasted.
Sophia Chikirou, who made herself known in politics by handling the communication of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s presidential campaigns in 2012 and 2017, is also concerned in another case: she was indicted in September 2024, in particular for “aggravated fraud”, on Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s 2017 campaign accounts. Accusations that she disputes.
