Madame Figaro
.
- France will become the first country to include access to abortion in its founding text.
What is your feeling ?
Eric Dupond-Moretti.
-
Great pride.
Because it protects women's freedom to control their bodies.
It was essential to include the Veil law in our Constitution, despite the declarations that some may have made.
A great emotion also because France is rediscovering its vocation of universality.
Today, there are the French women, and then there are everyone we can think of, the Argentines, the Brazilians, the Americans, the Hungarians, the Poles, to whom we are sending a real message of freedom.
It is addressed to women and, sorry to be grandiloquent, to the rest of the world.
Because this freedom also affects men.
So it's a bit dizzying, yes.
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What major historical event would you compare this moment to?
This is obviously a societal advance that I describe as major.
It's not every day that we add new things to our Constitution.
The last time dates back to 2008. Previously, there was the intervention of President Chirac to include in the Constitution the abolition of the death penalty.
Because you know what Robert Badinter brought, obviously abolition, but nevertheless, the text was not in the Constitution, Jacques Chirac had to take the initiative.
And at the time there were the same debates, there were questions like “but is the abolition of the death penalty really threatened?”
And the answer at the time was the same as today: should we wait until a right is threatened to protect it?
I think that formulating the question like that is already answering it.
“It’s a magnificent collective effort!
»
Eric Dupond-Moretti
Besides Aurore Bergé and
Mathilde Panot
, who submitted a first text in spring 2022, and elected officials like Mélanie Vogel who led the fight, you are the final actor in a success that many doubted.
How did you bring together deputies and senators on the issue?
You have forgotten Senator Dominique Vérien, who played a decisive role within the centrist Union group in the Senate, and also Senator Philippe Bas, who tabled an amendment which allowed, for the first time, the Senate to adopt this text.
Then, we had to find a text that suited both the National Assembly and the Senate, weigh each word, find the way forward in accordance with the mission entrusted to me by President Macron.
In this sense, there was significant editorial work.
Then there were the meetings.
The only way to convince the Senate is to respect it.
This is what I tried to do.
I saw the senators on several occasions, I took my pilgrim's staff, I met them, I received them here at the Chancellery.
Senators whom I knew could be hostile, some moreover, for reasons of intimate conviction which must absolutely be respected, because we are dealing with societal, philosophical, even religious questions.
It was necessary to convince then reassure;
reassure and then convince.
Frankly, I spared no effort, voice after voice to convince.
Then time did its work and so did women with parliamentarians who said “there are our women, there are our daughters and there are our sisters who came to convince us”.
It’s a magnificent collective effort!
What do you say to those who,
like Gérard Larcher
, said that this vote was useless, that women's right to control their bodies was not immediately threatened?
I repeat: we must not wait until a right is threatened to protect it.
We still have this very worrying example in the United States, where it was established for half a century that we would not touch abortion.
And then we questioned it.
After the Supreme Court's decision, twelve states banned abortion, which created real trauma.
Without crossing the Atlantic, we have Poland, Hungary.
In Hungary, the heartbeat of fetuses is heard to dissuade women from aborting, it is unbearable torture in my eyes, a humiliation.
In France, the threat was not imminent, but you never know?
It is essential to say that from the moment we place a text in the supreme norm that is the Constitution, we can no longer repeal it by an ordinary parliamentary process.
Because we would have to do the same thing in reverse, it would be necessary for two assemblies to vote on exactly the same text, and then three-fifths in Congress, which would be very complicated... That's on the ground of protection.
On a symbolic level, this vote says that all women in our country are free to control their bodies, period!
And this affirmation is essential.
Moreover, it generates real national harmony, because apart from a few exceptions on the extreme right who have expressed themselves, it is totally transpartisan.
Feminists wanted the word “right”. It was “freedom” that was chosen. A form of frustration will undoubtedly remain... Do you understand it?
Honestly, no.
Because the Council of State has enlightened us by telling us that there is no difference.
Furthermore, the Senate would not have accepted the term “right” but as long as it had no impact, it was a concession that we could make to the senators and we were right.
I say to those who are tempted to become frustrated, to use your expression, that there is no reason not to be happy with the choice of words, because the Council of State tells us very clearly that “ there is no difference between right and freedom”, it is simply a question of semantics.
Rest assured, our Constitution protects freedoms as well as it protects rights.
Telling women that they are free, that we affirm it in the supreme law, I find that it is essential
You reassured that the conscience clause would not be impacted by this registration. Why do some fear so much for the freedom of health professionals?
We are dealing with a societal text that touches the intimate.
There are doctors who do not wish to perform abortions, particularly for religious reasons.
We must understand this, it is their freedom of conscience.
Some told me that it should also be put in the constitutional text.
But I replied that this was already the case, because the Constitutional Council, through an extremely clear decision, elevated this freedom of conscience to the rank of constitutional principle, therefore untouchable.
You will not find in our Constitution a line on the rights of defense for example.
However, it is a constitutional principle, like this question of human dignity.
And basically, in this triptych “human dignity, freedom of conscience and abortion”, there is only abortion which was not a constitutional principle.
Hence a legal necessity to place these three principles on the same level and to enshrine abortion and the freedom guaranteed to women in our Constitution.
You say, in your speech, that “a democracy cannot fully control its destiny if the women who live there do not have the freedom to control theirs”…
But it is so obvious!
Women, it is important that we tell them that they are free.
That we affirm it in the supreme law, I find that it is essential.
And it is true that a country in which women are not free is not a democracy.
Just like a country in which men were not free would not be a democracy either, but it is often the freedoms of women that are attacked first.
I think this viscerally and I think I said it in my speech with all the sincerity of which I am capable.
Would you say that French women are free today?
I would say that there is still a lot to do, obviously.
But clearly, their freedoms will be more protected thanks to this revision!
We fight every day for the condition of women.
The protection order
(which allows the family affairs judge to urgently ensure the protection of victims of domestic or intra-family violence, Editor's note)
unfortunately shows that there are still women who are the subject of violence.
We are still in a patriarchal society, we still have many efforts to make.
On domestic violence, salary inequalities, the way we understand the words of women when they denounce acts of sexual violence.
Some women are free, others are not.
It's not bearable.
We must do everything so that women are even freer, that they are considered completely equal to men.
Is there, in your professional or personal career, someone or something that made you particularly aware of the subject?
I am lucky to have carried out my professional activity when abortion had already been enshrined in the Veil law.
I arrived at the bar in 1984, after the Bobigny trial
(
that of Marie-Claire Chevalier
, a teenager accused of having had an abortion after a rape, then acquitted thanks to Gisèle Halimi, Editor's note)
.
On the other hand, I had followed the whole story of this evolution, it marked my career as a lawyer.
And then the knitting needles, without falling into pathos and triviality, that cannot fail to challenge... The condition of women, of whom we know that the richest managed to go for a little trip to countries where we practiced abortion, and that the most deprived had abortions in ignominious conditions, could not leave us indifferent.
We must do everything so that women are considered completely equal to men.
Is the government now planning measures to facilitate access to abortion everywhere?
This is a question that was raised during the debates, but I do not shy away from it by saying that it does not fall within my scope as Minister of Justice.
You mention there the question of medical deserts, and what I know is that the Minister of Health, since it is she who is responsible for these questions, is obviously working to ensure that women can actually have an abortion when they wish it.
This singular argument has sometimes been put to me: “Why enshrine abortion in the Constitution when there is already difficulty in accessing doctors?”
Let's not mix everything up!
My mission as Minister of Justice was to protect this fundamental freedom of women by enshrining it in the Constitution.
I am proud to have achieved this with all the parliamentarians who mobilized.
The Me Too movement has led to a sudden increase in the number of complaints of rape or attempted rape. The “Insecurity and delinquency” study by the Ministry of the Interior, dated January, talks about 42,700 complaints filed in 2023...
Me Too first allowed the freedom of women's voices like never before.
In that, it is wonderful.
However, justice is not done on social networks, not on television sets, not in the newspapers, not in the streets.
Media time is not legal time.
And judicial time sometimes generates frustration, it's a reality.
However, we have greatly improved the way victims speak out, by training gendarmes, police officers, magistrates... We are condemning 30% more than in 2017. Rape in Europe is us who punish him most severely.
The penalties are much heavier than anywhere else in Europe.
Among the Spanish, for example, the maximum is twelve years.
With us, it is 15 years up to life imprisonment in cases of rape with aggravating circumstances.
I have a message to women who are victims: “File a complaint”!
Because we are doing everything to ensure that things evolve in the right direction and that the police and Justice are up to the task.
Yes, there are complaints that have been brushed aside in the past;
yes, we have not always been attentive in past decades.
But things have changed today.
There is the development of the anti-reconciliation bracelet, the development of the “serious danger” telephone, the protection order, the accommodation of the victim, the accommodation of the perpetrator to naturally prevent him from bothering his partner, the extension of statutes of limitations in matters of rape... To the point that we are today inspiring other European countries.
In a few days we will receive a delegation of Italians with my counterpart Mr Carlo Nordio, who is coming to see how the anti-reconciliation bracelet is put in place.
He comes to us, not to Madrid.
I think that of course, there are always efforts to be made, of course there are always feminicides and it is absolutely unbearable, even if their number has decreased by 20% in 2023. We cannot declare victory because it It's a constant battle.
One feminicide will always be one femicide too many.
One violence will always be one violence too many.
Today we inspire other European countries
How is sexual violence handled today, with sufficient speed and attention paid to victims?
One of the criticisms leveled at justice is its slowness.
How do we try to improve things?
By simply sending additional resources, particularly human resources.
Hence the historic hiring plan that I put in place: 1500 magistrates, 1800 clerks, contract workers to help justice get a second wind.
If you have three magistrates instead of one, you can hope for faster justice.
This is what I wish and it is the wish of the victims themselves.
You have to give an answer that makes sense over time.
This is also a desire clearly displayed and expressed by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, when he went to Bordeaux a few days ago to attend the swearing-in of the auditors of justice in a promotion which in terms of The workforce is a historic promotion - nearly 500 students who have a vocation to become magistrates.
The president asked that things be speeded up.
He also said: “It is an imperative, not a wish”.
And he's right.
On the issue of rape, my objective is to constantly improve our tools, including legal ones.
Also, if I call for caution when it comes to criminal law, this is normal in my role as Keeper of the Seals, I do not refrain from thinking about the question of the definition of rape.
MP Véronique Riotton is currently carrying out important parliamentary work and I will be very attentive to the proposals that will be made to improve our criminal law if necessary.
Here, at the Chancellery, we created the rolling statute of limitations
(principle which allows justice to investigate and prosecute a person for all the acts committed, Editor's note)
in cases of offenses perpetrated against minors.
And I do not refrain from thinking about a sliding prescription which would also concern adults.
We are constantly working on new advances.
But there is a timetable to respect, all this cannot be done in the blink of an eye.
Which women's rights project is most important to you?
The fight against violence against women.
It's my hobby horse.
Eradicating this scourge is my number one objective.
Every day, I have my eyes glued to the news to find out if there is femicide, under what conditions, what good we did, what can be improved... I think about Mérignac in particular
(the assassination of Chahinez Daoud by her husband, May 4, 2021, Editor's note)
.
This is the great cause of the President of the Republic's five-year term.
So I absolutely want us to have results and things are starting to move.
It took the Spaniards seven years before the number of feminicides fell a little;
we also know that there will always be dangerous people who behave badly with their partner, and that zero offense does not exist but my desire is to get us as close as possible.