Eric Dupond-Moretti facing our readers: "Magistrates also have to answer"

Despite the heavy news of the day and this attack in front of the former premises of "Charlie Hebdo", Eric Dupond-Moretti arrives exactly on time in the premises of our newspaper on Friday.

At ease with our panelists, the new Minister of Justice is interested in the establishment of his compatriot Ch'ti Sébastien, restaurateur in Lille, asks for details from Fanny, educator specializing in a reintegration association in Paris, and smiles. when Camille explains to him that she is a lawyer.

Finally, he promises to answer all the questions of Diané, whose brother Ibrahima died on a motorcycle in October 2019 in Villiers-le-Bel (Val d'Oise), near a police operation.

For an hour and a half, questions fuse.

Before the former tenor of the bar escapes, caught up in his “ministerial agenda”, Marc obtains a dedication of his book “Bête noire” (Michel Lafon) for his young son.

NEWS.

"Terrorism is difficult to apprehend"

Marc German.

What is your reaction to the attack on the former Charlie Hebdo premises?

ÉRIC DUPOND-MORETTI.

I spent the whole afternoon of Friday on this painful news.

I have absolutely no right to comment on the substance.

The reaction I can have is therefore a reaction of humanity for the victims and their families.

How can you kill in the name of God?

I do not know.

Terrorism is difficult to apprehend.

There are those who are on file and those who turn out to be terrorists overnight.

As far as I am concerned, in prison, France has around 500 detainees imprisoned for terrorist offenses and 690 radicalized detainees imprisoned for common law offenses.

Some are therefore prosecuted or convicted for this reason and others have become radicalized in prison, which is also a real problem we are fighting against.

Multidisciplinary support has been set up, specialized neighborhoods, the intelligence services follow them and thwart many plans for attacks.

But sometimes it can come out of nowhere.

Camille Lucotte.

You were visiting Bobigny today

First, I would like to remind you that a raise is not a gift.

You have to go get it and it's not easy at all.

With my services, we have worked like crazy and the new budget will be 8.2 billion euros.

That is an increase of 8%.

It has been over a quarter of a century since the Department of Justice obtained such an increase.

By the end of 2021, we will launch the largest recruitment plan in Justice.

2,450 personnel will be sent to the courts: magistrates, clerks, officers from the prison administration and judicial protection of young people.

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But I also want to quickly set up local civil and criminal justice.

Among these staff we are therefore going to hire 950 people already trained, assistant lawyers, assistant clerks but also in additional number of prosecutors' delegates, who will be operational from next January.

These recruits will allow judges to go faster, in particular to meet the challenges of petty crime, the one that most rots the lives of our fellow citizens.

The justice executes the sentences at 92% but it executes them far too late.

It is unbearable for the citizens, for the police and even more for the victims.

I want ultra-rapid justice in this area.

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Finally, we will make an effort on penitentiary integration and probation advisers, on judicial protection of young people (PJJ) and access to the law.

HIS PROJECTS FOR JUSTICE.

"20 million euros devoted to the fight against domestic violence"

The Keeper of the Seals came with the anti-reconciliation bracelet./LP/Olivier Arandel  

Marc German.

France is crumbling under the laws.

Isn't a work of simplification essential?

Legislative inflation does exist, it is obvious.

As far as I am concerned, I will not contribute to it.

We are at the end of the term and the legislative calendar has already been set.

There are only a few legislative windows left that I intend to use.

But I scratch in all directions to disseminate good practices without needing to legislate.

Just one example: when it comes to divorce, I want couples to be called at a specific time as was the case during the health crisis.

Until now, they had to wait for hours until their turn came.

It is a simple reform.

Diané Bah.

How was the management of the health crisis in the prisons?

With the health crisis, in overcrowded prisons, the pressure cooker was going to explode with serious risks of mutinies.

For the prison administration, it was difficult.

For prisoners too.

They took their share of responsibility by being deprived of their families.

They understood it.

The number of detainees also had to drop.

There were 13,000 fewer and there are two reasons for this.

We first released the detainees two months after the end of their sentence, those convicted of the less serious offenses, not the criminals.

And then there was the drop in delinquency during confinement which slowed down the rate of incarceration.

Out of 13,000 released detainees, only 60 incidents were recorded that were not major.

This is a way of responding to Marine Le Pen who instrumentalized these releases.

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Today the prison administration is delighted because its agents finally have the feeling of being able to work better on the reintegration component.

But when you have too many prisoners, that is not possible.

I remind you that France is regularly beaten by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the subject.

If I plan to leave a mark in this ministry, it is also so that we talk about prison in a different way, in a more intelligent way.

I will soon express the details of my policy to go further on this subject.

Fanny Laplane.

Emmanuel Macron said he made the fight against feminicides one of his priorities.

But we realize that many cases could have been avoided because the victims had alerted the justice!

First I would like to show you this

.

It's called the anti-reconciliation bracelet.

We wasted no time.

The decree in the Council of State was taken on September 23 and published on the 24th, the day it was launched in five jurisdictions.

1,000 bracelets of this type will be available everywhere in France at the end of the year.

This is how it works.

A man seriously threatens a woman, the judge requires her to wear the bracelet.

Him, he has a beep, she, she has a beep and there is a perimeter that is defined.

It can be 20 km, which is huge.

As soon as he crosses the perimeter, it goes off.

The police intervene both to stop him and to reassure the victim.

The wife also has a little button: if she feels threatened, she presses and someone comes to reassure and protect her.

This obviously works 24 hours a day.

We are going to save a large number of lives, the number of which we will never know by nature.

Alongside this new device, there is also the possibility for the judge to remove the husband who hits his wife and force him to leave the marital home, or even the “serious danger” telephone, already in place.

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But I would like to tell you about what is happening in Cateau-Cambrésis (North).

When a beaten woman arrives at the Emergency Room, she is taken care of from A to Z. She is first treated, then she sees a psychologist, a social worker, then the gendarmes, the prosecutor and the lawyer arrive.

It works thanks to the joint work of all the partners.

When I saw that, I said: "I want it to be spread over the whole territory".

As I have little time, I want to collect the best practices.

We even have a “good practices” advisor at the ministry who reports them to us and we try to implement them very quickly.

Finally, I would add that in the next budget, 20 million euros will be devoted to the fight against domestic violence by improving medico-legal care.

HIS LIFE AS A MINISTER.

"I said to myself: if I don't go, I no longer look at myself in a mirror"

"My ministry is all I know ... and all I don't know", recognizes Dupond-Moretti / LP / Olivier Arandel  

Sébastien Defrance.

Why did you accept this post of Keeper of the Seals?

I spent 36 years working in courthouses.

When the President of the Republic proposed it to me, I said to myself: "If I don't go, I no longer look at myself in a mirror".

The President is someone I really like.

He is courageous, outspoken and wants to make a difference.

Fanny Laplane.

You said, however, that you would never accept this position because it was not your job and that you did not have the competence.

So you changed your mind?

It is true that it is not the same job.

I am 59 years old and it is for me the first time in many fields: first time before the National Assembly, before the Senate, in the Council of Ministers… So I am learning.

Basically, my ministry is everything I know… and everything I don't know.

VIDEO.

Dupond-Moretti heckled by deputies for his first in the Assembly

Sébastien Defrance.

Exactly, what is the life of a minister?

Do you know the expression “having a minister's agenda”?

Well, it's not usurped

.

Financially, has it changed your life too?

Yes, I am making a lot less money, but that's not a problem.

SUBJECTS THAT ANGER.

"As a minister, I will not hush up any business"

[title]

The Keeper of the Seals accepts the fact that he is not unanimous among the magistrates./LP/Olivier Arandel  

Camille Lucotte.

We saw you this summer alongside Thierry Herzog, Nicolas Sarkozy's lawyer.

Now that you are Keeper of the Seals, isn't that a curious mix of genres?

It turns out that he lives in Nice, where I have a house myself.

And we were there at the same time.

He has been my friend for 30 years.

Mediapart doesn't like it, too bad.

There is also an ongoing procedure against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), after a complaint that you yourself had filed in the case of fadettes.

This inevitably raises questions about a possible conflict of interest ...

You are wrong and I will prove it to you.

The story is as follows: the PNF (National Financial Prosecutor's Office) carried out a secret investigation which lasted six years.

And inadvertently, we discovered that we had searched the nonsense, in other words the telephone conversations, of several lawyers, magistrates and a journalist.

I was a lawyer at the time, so I filed a complaint.

As soon as I arrived at the ministry, I withdrew it.

It turns out that my predecessor Nicole Belloubet had seized the services for an inspection of operation in charge of knowing whether there had precisely not been dysfunctions in the way of carrying out this investigation.

The General Inspectorate of Justice has therefore recently issued a report which pointed out, lengths in the investigation, a lack of professional rigor and a lack of loyalty.

So I asked for an administrative investigation, which seemed to me the least of things.

Except that the former national financial prosecutor has already said that she would not respond to this summons, on the pretext that she was not accountable.

Well yes, they are accountable, like all French people.

I haven't held anyone's pen in this story!

Who are services?

It is not bibi, but magistrates of the General Inspectorate of Justice.

I did not order anything and I have no conflict of interest in it.

We are in a great democracy, the unions have their expression and I respect it.

But I say what I have to say and as a minister, I will not hush up any business.

Diané Bah.

The magistrates still say they don't trust you.

What do you answer them?

It is not all the magistrates, but some magistrates in their union expression.

When Madame Guigou made the law of June 15, 2000 to reform penal procedure, some went to Place Vendôme to throw out codes.

Mr. Badinter was not always unanimous and today he is an icon.

What matters to me is that the French have more confidence in the justice of this country.

There are a certain number of magistrates who criticize me, others who support me… it does not matter.

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Fanny Laplane.

Don't you have the impression that justice works at two speeds.

We sometimes have the feeling that people of color or people who come from cities do not undergo the same treatment as politicians or people from the upscale neighborhoods ...

I don't think politicians are treated better than others.

Perhaps this was the case a long time ago, but it is no longer.

Judges have largely demonstrated their independence in this area.

We have a real subject on the perception of justice by citizens and I will tell you why I am attached to the Assize Court.

All the jurors that I have met have said to me: what is it difficult to judge!

When we are at the store-bought café, between anisette and coffee, we roll our heads, we are sure that, "go ahead, that's not enough", that's too much, justice this, justice that ... But when you enter the courthouse and take the oath, you realize how complicated it is.

Moreover, I am in favor of justice now being fully filmed and broadcast.

Justice must show itself to the French.

Publicity of debates is a democratic guarantee.

We think about it with my services.

I would like to wear this before the end of the quinquennium.

Diané Bah.

When we see Patrick Balkany released for health reasons dancing in the street

I cannot speak about my former clients, in the name of professional secrecy.

And as Keeper of the Seals, I cannot comment on adjudicated cases.

Camille Lucotte.

Are you still in favor of the repatriation of people imprisoned in Syria?

That was my position: they must be judged in France.

That's what I said when I was a lawyer.

In a government you are not alone and today I belong to a government team.

We discuss these subjects together and the issue of children.

It is not yet decided.

Marc German.

When you were his lawyer, you also campaigned for France to grant the right of asylum to Julien Assange ...

It is a complex subject.

His health deteriorated.

To be honest with you, I was supposed to see President Emmanuel Macron on this subject in the spring but it did not happen because of the epidemic.

Now that I'm a minister, he has a new lawyer who will do his job.

POLICE VIOLENCE.

"We cannot anathematize an entire profession"

"When violence exists, justice punishes it" according to the Minister of Justice./LP/Olivier Arandel  

Diané Bah.

Would you say, like Christophe Castaner or Gérald Darmanin, that there is no “police violence”?

I never said that kind of thing.

Violent police officers exist.

And when that exists, justice punishes them.

Police officers are condemned.

It is true that there are also racist police officers, as among lawyers or journalists.

But we must be complete on the question: the vast majority of police officers are of course not racist.

The leader of the Republicans Christian Jacob had said: there is no blunder.

It's ridiculous, but you can't curse an entire profession.

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Diané Bah.

I sent you a letter on July 22, of which I have a copy here, and I never received a reply!

Are you leaving me this mail?

I'll answer you.

The Chancellery responds to all letters from litigants and I wanted there to be even more personalized responses.

Except for abusive and anonymous mail.

Diané Bah.

What do you think of the IGPN (General Inspectorate of the National Police)?

Is it up to the police to control the police?

Who else do you want to entrust with the investigations?

There is a specialized police force for this.

HIS PERSONAL LIFE.

"I have always been anxious to preserve my privacy"

Eric Dupond-Moretti does not “forbid himself anything” concerning his future./LP/Olivier Arandel  

Sébastien Defrance.

After your different jobs (waiter, lawyer, actor) what will be your next step?

I don't say anything more about my future

.

I do not forbid myself anything.

Marc German.

You have been a very media lawyer, you have done theater, cinema, we see you on TV sets… Isn't there a contradiction in developing a certain media shamelessness when, paradoxically, you fiercely preserve your private sphere and your relationship with a popular singer?

Media shamelessness, you can't blame me because I've always been anxious to preserve my privacy as I respect that of others.

It's not easy, and even less so lately.

Everyone knows my relationship with Isabelle Boulay.

I never went to get lost in programs in which I did not talk about my profession as a lawyer, freedom, prisons… If you only knew the number of programs I refused for that!

Why didn't you download the “Stop Covid” app?

(Laughs).

I didn't download it, but a collaborator downloaded it to me, a young geek.

Eric Dupond-Moretti and the readers of our journal

LP / Olivier Arandel  

Around Eric Dupond-Moretti, from left to right: Camille Lucotte, 33, lawyer, Paris;

Sébastien Defrance, 46, restaurateur, Lille (Rhône);

Marc German, 58, entrepreneur, Paris;

Fanny Laplane, 30, specialist educator, Paris;

Diané Bah, 41, coach driver, Sarcelles (Val-d'Oise).