Paris (AFP)
The National Financial Prosecutor's Office "has become a pharmacy", said Thursday the candidate LR for mayor of Paris Rachida Dati, according to whom a "definitive distrust of justice" risks to settle.
"When I see everything that comes out concerning the National Financial Prosecutor's Office, (...) this PNF, I have the feeling that it has become a pharmacy," she said on RTL.
The former Keeper of the Seals recalled that at its creation the magistrates were "very reluctant not to say opposed" to the setting up of the PNF "because some feared that it was an armed wing of political justice".
"When you don't have a network, when you are fragile, when you are vulnerable, you only have the rule of law to protect yourself" and "I have the impression that it failed here", a added this close to Nicolas Sarkozy.
"It is dangerous, that means that we are going into arbitrariness" and "we must be very careful because when you no longer have faith in justice" then "it is the law of the strongest" and "everyone takes justice for themselves," she added.
Dati was reacting to an article in Le Point revealing that the PNF had carried out extensive investigations in an attempt to identify a "mole" in the so-called "wiretapping" affair targeting Nicolas Sarkozy - another difficult episode for the financial prosecutor's office already under fire from critics in the Fillon or Kohler case.
For Ms. Dati, "there are too many cases coming out, too many dysfunctions appearing not to worry about them" and "either we have transparency about what happened, or there will be definitive distrust on justice ".
For his part, the LR deputy of Alpes-Maritimes Eric Ciotti denounced "a relentless relentlessness" towards Nicolas Sarkozy who "has been placed below the law" by "a jurisdiction which raises questions".
"We see the shadow of a political justice" in the action of the PNF and "personally I demand its removal" he added on BFMTV.
© 2020 AFP