Versailles (AFP)

"There is no time to lose": forty years after the death of Robert Boulin, the justice still investigates the death of the minister. Investigations that his family, who does not believe in a suicide but an assassination, judge too slow.

In the forest of Rambouillet, on the edge of the pond Rompu, a small group observes a man in suit and tie slowly enter the cold water, guided by the instructions of a witness.

This Monday morning, the minister's daughter and her lawyer decided to organize, four decades after the events, a "reconstitution citizen", where was found, October 30, 1979, the body of the Minister of Labor.

"If we wait for October 2020, there may be no one to explain what he saw that day," said Marie Dosé, the lawyer of Fabienne Boulin.

"We can not insult our luck anymore, these are the last years, people will disappear one after the other," she says. "There is more time to lose."

In 1979, the death of the 59-year-old Gaullist minister in Raymond Barre's government was classified as suicide by drowning, after ingestion of barbiturates. That year, he had indeed been implicated through press articles in a real estate business in Ramatuelle (Var).

Doubtful of this version, his family filed a complaint in 1983: the investigation, opened for murder, ended in a dismissal in 1991. Convinced that the minister was murdered because he held information about a financing occult of his political family, his daughter asked, in 2002 and 2010, the reopening of the file, without success.

In 2015, however, a new complaint resulted in the opening of a new criminal investigation against X, for "kidnapping" and "murder".

Since then, several people, who had never been heard by the courts, testified at Versailles.

This is the case of an emergency doctor who arrived at the scene, who participated in the reconstitution on Monday and who believes that the position of the body did not correspond to that of a drowned person. A medical examiner, who had participated in the second autopsy in 1983 and described the first autopsy as "sloppy", was also heard.

- "Just the truth" -

In January, a second judge was co-seizure of the file to expedite investigations and in September, a forensic report to determine the causes of death was entrusted to four experts, according to a source familiar with the case , confirmed by the parquet of Versailles.

An automotive expert was also asked to verify the credibility of the statements of a witness, who claims to have seen the minister in a Peugeot in Monfort-l'Amaury, the day before his death, accompanied by two people. The conclusions must be delivered by 1 March 2020 at the latest.

The civil party, who had asked for these acts, welcomes but regrets that things are not "fast enough".

"All this is extremely slow," said Me Dosé, who wants to hear a "fortnight" of other witnesses.

"People die, lose their memory, so we must do this quickly," says Fabienne Boulin, who quotes the example of Philippe Mestre, chief of staff of Prime Minister Raymond Barre, who died in 2017 without having been heard.

After "40 years" of "judicial disaster", "that justice gives itself the means to advance quickly, well and serenely!" She launches. "I'm just asking the truth, it seems right to me."

On October 15, the municipal council of Libourne, of which Robert Boulin was mayor from 1959 to 1979, unanimously voted a subsidy of 3,000 euros to finance the reconstitution.

"On October 30, 1979, the French lost a minister, and the Libournais lost their mayor.For 40 years, they are at the side of the family in their search for truth," told PS Mayor PS Philippe Buisson.

Wednesday, for the 4th time, the municipality will organize a tribute to the town hall open to residents. A wreath will be placed at the foot of Robert Boulin's bust.

© 2019 AFP