In the middle of summer, the clouds gather above the place Beauvau: the new Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, is the object of several controversies which mark his beginning of career as "the first cop of France" . To the point of weakening him, not even four weeks after his appointment to replace Christophe Castaner.
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First there were the charges of rape, relating to events from 2009, which resurfaced after the investigation was reopened last June. His trip to pay homage to Father Hamel, who died in July 2016, was thus jostled, like others. "Dirty rapist," shouted a dozen people in Saint-Étienne du Rouvray.
Every output disturbed?
"It's appalling, it risks being like that at each exit", fears a ministerial adviser to Europe 1. Those who frequent the Minister of the Interior say he is affected: "He is less flamboyant, we can see that he is not at the top, "observes one of his colleagues in the government.
The new minister also shocked by denouncing, Saturday, "the enslavement of a certain part of society", a term popular with the extreme right. Some LREM deputies opposed the use of this word to describe the current security situation.
"I'm choking on it"? "Bullshit"
The latest controversy to date concerns his use of the expression "I am suffocating" about the term "police violence", Tuesday evening. Assumed by the minister, these comments shocked the family of Cédric Chouviat, who died during his arrest last January. This delivery driver had shouted "I'm suffocating" on multiple occasions.
>> READ ALSO - Cédric Chouviat's father criticizes Darmanin: "It's scandalous, he hurt the whole family"
"It's bullshit, it's delusional", annoys a minister, convinced that it is a blunder. Officially, the minister of course keeps the confidence of both Emmanuel Macron and Jean Castex. But "the whole question," says one adviser, "is whether he can hold up." The important thing, he says, "is that he spends the summer".