Two Macron ministers, investigated for alleged conflict of interest

The French justice announced this Wednesday the opening of investigations for an alleged conflict of interest against two ministers of President Emmanuel Macron.

This is the person in charge of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, suspected of having ordered from his Ministry investigations related to his previous stage as a lawyer and, in a different case, the Minister of Overseas, Sebastien Lecornu, for events prior to his post in the central government.

The news is known at a delicate moment: just when the Elysee was holding a “government seminar” with all its ministers to outline the political strategy in the last section of the Government before the 2022 elections. In them, Macron is expected to try to repeat a mandate that began in 2017 with a team that, as promised, would be "irreproachable" but that from the first moment suffered casualties due to alleged irregularities.

"Being the subject of an investigation does not mean being guilty," Government spokesman Gabriel Attal replied after the seminar, appealing to the presumption of innocence that the Elysee has already used in the past in the face of questions for keeping other members of the cabinet despite to the opening of judicial investigations, some still pending.

The Executive already had to defend itself last July, after announcing the reconfiguration of the cabinet in which the current Minister of the Interior, Gérald de Darmanin entered, despite being accused by a woman of rape and breach of trust, and Dupond himself. Moretti, a controversial star lawyer known for his clashes with the magistracy of which he has been head since then.

Now, the Court of Justice of the Republic, the competent body to try crimes allegedly committed by members of the Government during the exercise of their functions, has opened an investigation against Dupond-Moretti.

The reason is to have ordered, in September, an administrative investigation against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office who had investigated him when he was a lawyer, in relation to a case of wiretapping and corruption that has brought former President Nicolas Sarkozy to justice.

“The Minister of Justice used his role to fix a personal problem from when he was a lawyer.

This is called a conflict of interest, that is, taking advantage of a function of public authority to serve a personal interest, ”said Jérôme Karsenti, a lawyer for Anticor, an anti-corruption association that is behind the complaint against the Minister of Justice along with three unions magistrates.

Dupond-Moretti declared himself "totally serene" on Wednesday and assured that he has "nothing to fear."

On the other hand, the National Financial Prosecutor's Office confirmed this Wednesday an investigation against the Overseas Minister for a "conflict of interest" related to his time at the head of the French department of the Eure.

The objective is to determine whether Lecornu acted in accordance with the law by accepting remuneration as a member of the board of the company that operates the Paris-Normandy motorway when, as head of one of the departments through which it passes, he had great influence on public contracts granted to said company.

Lecornu's office assured Agence France Presse that the minister has acted with "total transparency."

Macron came to the government promising transparency, after an electoral campaign in which the main favorite, the conservative François Fillon, fell unexpectedly after revealing several cases of diversion of public money in his family environment, which is why last year he was sentenced to five years in prison, although he has appealed the sentence.

Despite proclaiming an "irreproachable" team, Macron's own cabinet has suffered from the first moments of suspicion of irregularities: only in the first month of government, four ministers were forced to resign due to open investigations against him among others for suspicions of alleged fictitious jobs with money from the European Parliament.

One of those affected was François Bayrou, the first to occupy the Justice portfolio that Dupond-Moretti now holds.