Capital reveals a national scandal which amounts to tens of millions of euros: the money of associations. Nearly one in two French people is a member of one of them. Whether you like Zumba, tulips or stamp collecting, there is certainly an association in your city that brings together other enthusiasts like you! In France, there are 1.5 million associations which brew around 113 billion euros each year, about 3.3% of the national GDP.
To finance themselves, they rely on contributions from their members, but also on public subsidies paid to them in particular by the municipalities. How do you know if these aids are allocated and spent wisely?
In principle, the law obliges associations which receive more than € 153,000 in grants public to publish their accounts. But we have discovered a very opaque area. Lack of control, illegal payments of money, our elected officials do not always know what the millions of euros they allocate each year are really for.
Capital in particular investigated Toulouse, where the municipality headed by Jean-Luc Moudenc does not seem to keep the list of agreements that associations must provide to receive public money. The city councilor refers to one of the municipal councilors, Christophe Alves, who also remains unclear on the place where these documents are stored which the investigators of the regional chamber of accounts are looking for. But he assures him “I will meet you in 18 months to prove to you that we will have significantly improved on this point”.
