Paris (AFP)
Faced with criticism from the main magistrates' union, ex-lawyer and new Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti reached out on Tuesday to "the whole legal family", promising to "dialogue" and carry out the reform " long awaited "from the prosecution.
The announcement of the appointment of this thundering criminal, not always stingy with attacks on judges, stunned many magistrates and brought out of its hinges the majority union in the judiciary, the USM, which saw in it a "declaration of war".
The Ministry of Justice "is not the Ministry of War, even if I thought I heard these words, but that of liberties", retorted Tuesday Eric Dupond-Moretti, after receiving the "seals" from the hands of his predecessor Nicole Belloubet.
Less than two weeks earlier, the man who was still a lawyer, and one of the most famous in France, got angry at the National Financial Prosecutor's Office and its "barbouzes methods". The weekly Le Point had just revealed that the PNF had for almost six years tried to identify the "mole" who had been able to inform Nicolas Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog - a friend of Eric Dupond-Moretti - that they were on listen in a corruption case.
The investigators had for a while peeled the detailed telephone bills ("fadettes") of many tenors of the bar and their collaborators, including Me Dupond-Moretti who had then announced the filing of a complaint for "violation of the privacy of the privacy and the secrecy of correspondence "and" abuse of authority ".
This complaint was withdrawn on Monday evening, according to the entourage of the President of the Republic.
Still at the end of June, before the post of Keeper of the Seals was offered to him, he promised on LCI to "clean up" the judiciary "very very very clearly" and to set up "a system of judges' responsibility ".
In 2018, he demanded the abolition of the National School of Magistrates (ENM) and criticized the magistrates for being "embedded (at the ENM) in a mold from which they will never leave".
- "Acts" -
Words that many magistrates have not digested and which contrast with his inauguration speech.
In the courtyard of the Chancellery, the new minister greeted these "very great magistrates before whom (he) had the honor of pleading". He also mentioned "the deplorable working conditions in which magistrates and clerks struggle daily".
In "a benevolent message to the whole judicial family", he promises "dialogue" and acceptance of the "contradiction", of which he has "always been a fervent defender". But said he wanted to "keep the best and change the worst" of the judiciary.
Reconciling the "judicial family" is one of the main challenges of Eric Dupond-Moretti, as the unity displayed against the vast justice reform of Nicole Belloubet seems far away.
The revelations about the PNF's investigations targeting tenors of the bar have rekindled tensions, already exacerbated by the lawyers' hard strike against the pension reform and by two months of confinement.
And they have relaunched the debate on the independence of the judiciary.
Eric Dupond-Moretti made it his priority, declaring that he wanted "to be the Keeper of the Seals who will finally carry the reform of the prosecution". Many times promised, this reform provides that the public prosecutors are appointed on the assent of the Supreme Judicial Council (CSM), like the magistrates of the bench.
"This is essentially what we expect," reacted to AFP Céline Parisot, president of the USM (Union syndicale des magistrats), "always disillusioned" and "doubtful" after the appointment of Eric Dupond-Moretti.
"He reaches out, he couldn't help it," she added. "If in two years, it leads to a reform of the prosecution, it would already be a small revolution", noted the magistrate who wants the minister to go "from words to deeds".
"We noted a willingness to speak to the magistrates. But Eric Dupond-Moretti is not our school teacher. He had very strong words, we are waiting for it to turn into action", underlined Lucille Rouet, secretary National Union of Magistrates (SM, classified on the left).
© 2020 AFP