The reform of juvenile criminal justice is making its way through Parliament.
The Senate adopted Wednesday evening, at first reading, the bill on this reform, which aims in particular to "simplify the criminal procedure applicable to juvenile offenders".
This reform is considered too “repressive” by the left.
The National Assembly adopted the reform project in December.
Deputies and senators must now agree on a common text in a joint committee, which seems achievable.
"The debates showed a convergence on the essential", notes the senator of the majority RDPI group En Marche Thani Mohamed Soilihi.
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The senators asked for some changes to the project, such as a coming into force on September 30 rather than March 31 as currently foreseen in the project.
The Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti says he "took note" of this request.
According to the rapporteur Les Républicains Agnès Canayer, the objective is to "give it every chance of achieving its objective of reducing delinquency".
Replace the 1945 ordinance
The bill passed by show of hands is the ratification of an ordinance.
A method unanimously criticized on the benches of the Senate.
The code of criminal justice for minors that it organizes is intended to replace the 1945 ordinance devoted to juvenile delinquency.
The centrist senator Dominique Vérien expects "an improvement for the child being tried but also for the victim".
The reform project sets up a two-stage procedure, with the objective of reducing the use of pre-trial detention, which today concerns 80% of imprisoned minors.
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A first hearing will have to rule on the guilt within three months - against 18 months currently on average.
A second hearing will have to be held within a period of between six and nine months, for the pronouncement of the sanction, sentence or educational measure.
In the meantime, the minor will be subjected to a period of "educational probation", which may include educational and security measures.
A "single hearing" will remain possible for minors already known to the courts.
The children's judge reinvested in the senatorial project
Against the advice of the government, the senators entrusted to a judge of children and not to the judge of freedoms and detention, the decision to place a minor in pre-trial detention.
Likewise, they entrusted the juvenile judge with the least serious contraventions, for which the police court was competent.
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The code also provides for a presumption of irresponsibility before 13 years.
Regarding the thorny question of “discernment”, debated well beyond the institutions in recent weeks, in particular thanks to the release of speech on incest, the upper chamber adopted the government's definition according to which the minor "Understood and wanted his act" and "is able to understand the meaning of the criminal procedure".
The amendment of Senator Valérie Boyer retoked
The left for its part voted against the text.
The president of the Communist, Republican, Citizen and Environmentalist (CRCE) group with a Communist majority, Eliane Assassi, denounces "a repressive drift".
The ecologist Esther Benbassa judges, it, "the bringing together of the justice of the minors of that of the adults problematic".
"A minor in conflict with the law must be considered above all as a child to be protected", adds Laurence Harribey of the Socialist Party.
On Wednesday evening, an amendment proposed by Senator Les Républicains Valérie Boyer caused a moment of tension.
It aimed to create "a contract of commitments" to "empower" families, with financial penalties.
It was ultimately not adopted.