Hidalgo's trip to Tahiti leads to new anti-corruption investigation

Investigators searched Paris City Hall on Tuesday as part of an inquiry into Mayor Anne Hidalgo's taxpayer-funded trip to the French Pacific island of Tahiti, a judicial source told AFP.

The source said the investigation, first reported by Le Monde newspaper, was launched in November following complaints from anti-corruption activists and city council members about Hidalgo's October trip with Paris officials.

The investigation followed a complaint by an anti-corruption association to the Paris prosecutor's office, as well as reports from elected council members in Paris and the Ile-de-France region, a source told Reuters.

Financial crime specialists and prosecutors from the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) went to City Hall on Tuesday, the source added.

It is worth giving the story a fuller context. The official purpose of the trip was to visit the site in Tahiti where the surfing competition for the 2024 Olympics will be held, as reported by Le Canard enchaîné newspaper on October 25. However, Le Parisien later reported that Hidalgo had gone on a week-long private vacation to her daughter, who lives on an island near Bora Bora.

The mayor herself, who has accused the government of lagging behind in preparations for the Olympics, has been heavily criticized in recent weeks for traveling to French Polynesia just days after the school attack and amid tensions in Paris following the Hamas attack in Israel.

In total, the trip by Hidalgo, who was accompanied by at least five members of her cabinet, cost about 60,000 euros, according to figures provided by her staff, amid a spike in the city's debt and a jump in Paris' local taxes.

According to the AFP news agency, Hidalgo justified her trip by saying it was linked to this year's Olympics, which will be held in Teahupu, Tahiti, among other places.

But the facts say otherwise. According to official records, Hidalgo took her partner with her and added a two-week personal stay to the 60,000-euro ($65,000) official visit. Hidalgo claims she paid for the personal portion of the trip, including her flight home.

The anti-corruption association, "AC!!! Anti-Corruption," said her trip did include a visit to her daughter, who lives on a neighboring island.

One of the most unusual parts of this story has to do with the official purpose of Hidalgo's visit to Tahiti. While the main official purpose of her trip was to visit the Tahitian venue for the 2024 Olympics surfing competition, it turned out that she was unable to visit the venue "due to the tense atmosphere" following protests by locals, according to a statement from her team, and her participation in the event had to be replaced by that of her deputy.

While the Paris mayor has been criticized for her behavior on the issue, her decision to go on the counter-attack against her critics by accusing them of "misogyny" is surprising.

In an interview with Politico, Hidalgo denied a Le Monde report that she brushed off warnings from her top male advisers about the trip, attributing it to sexism.

"Ah yes, women always need men," she said with a smirk. "Women are always 'lonely' and 'authoritarian' .... 'ridiculous'."

Yet this is not the first time Ann Hidalgo has been accused of solitary decision-making and an authoritarian style of politics. Her approaches to calming the storm arising from her decisions seem divisive and quite aggressive.

The reality of the media frenzy in which Hidalgo finds herself this time around suggests two conclusions. If the version of the authoritative approach to her management is true, then Hidalgo must be held fully accountable for her decisions. The timing of her voyage could not have been worse. Hidalgo was accompanied by five members of her cabinet on the South Pacific trip, and it cost about 60,000 euros, according to her staff, amid the city's difficult fiscal realities, mounting debt and a jump in taxes. Recall that since 2001, when Paris' debt was 1 billion euros, its current debt of 8 billion, is in many ways the epitome of waste and ineffective economic policies, including in many ways Hidalgo herself, who has been in senior positions in the Paris mayor's office since 2001.

On the other hand, if the responsibility does not lie with Hidalgo, and if her actions were the fault of her team of consultants, then surely the accusations of the "sexist and misogynistic" approach of which she calls herself a victim are completely futile.

The bottom line is that Anne Hidalgo seems to be back in a problematic situation. How can the mayor of Paris go to Tahiti on official business when she is spending time with her daughter who lives there and extending her stay by making it private? How can the mayor of a city preparing for the Olympic Games claim to have visited the area to promote the Olympic Games, and yet return home without attending the very meeting that was the purpose of the trip, delegating it to her deputy? And how can one justify the fact that the ethics committee of the Paris mayor's office, chosen by the mayor herself, cleared her of a potential conflict of interest accusations while a judicial investigation has been launched into Hidalgo's actions?

Jamal Mustafayev