At the Assembly, Castaner defender of the judicial police

The Minister of the Interior's hearing before the Assembly's committee of inquiry on the obstacles to the independence of the judiciary was eagerly awaited. Isn't he, in principle, "the best informed man in France" ? To hear it, however, he knows only the bare essentials. He even welcomed the end of the “white notes” of the ex-RG, decided in the past by Nicolas Sarkozy.

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Questioned by the deputy LR of Eure-et-Loire, Olivier Marleix, on the scandal of the systematic peeling of the telephone bills of tens of lawyers within the framework of an investigation of the national financial parquet floor dating from 2014, in connection with a file targeting this same Sarkozy, the Beauvau host dropped this small phase: "This operation (...) would never have happened" if the interception of data had been administrative and not ordered by magistrates of the judicial order .

Admittedly, the minister had taken care to specify, a few seconds earlier: "I have no information on the matter raised, I prefer to be clear on the subject. And so much the better. First, because it is old and then because it does not come under the Ministry of the Interior. I don't say that to discard, but because we are really on a legal framework. ”

Balancing exercise

But he could not help continuing, almost maliciously: "And I noted that several dozen lawyers, several dozen magistrates too, would have been followed in this case. (…) I believe that certain professions have to be protected by nature, but that at the same time it does not exempt them from anything, while respecting the law. ” A fine balancing act in short, where you can feel the gripe on the methods, without demanding the end of a system.

Christophe Castaner was in verve: “I think it is in our interest to widen the conditions of communication of the prosecutor, to grant a right of communication to the investigative services (…). I really think that it is necessary, on this subject, to give possibilities of expression, of nourishment by those who are at the heart of everything, or who have responsibilities in the intervention which is not the time of the investigation into these matters, "he said. Does he want to give more voice to the chiefs of police in particular, as is the case in Anglo-Saxon countries, while in France, it is mainly the police unions who are sent to the fire to give explanations?

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The first French cop made another point: "To separate the judicial police from other police activities would be to ignore the reality on the ground," he said. He would like to counter the recurrent attempts at total takeover of justice on the PJ that he would not say anything else. For him, it is "the separation of powers and the independence of investigations" that allows "investigators to carry out their work in the best possible conditions" . This close friend of Emmanuel Macron clearly wants to make it known that he still holds the walls of the "big house".