Presenting Thursday the traditional wishes of the Constitutional Council to Emmanuel Macron, Mr. Fabius expressed his few "reasons for astonishment, even concern about the turn taken by the public debate on the notion of the rule of law".
"It is no longer rare now that, in France as in other democracies considered as advanced, doubts and criticisms are expressed on the rule of law", insisted the former Prime Minister.
Targeting, without naming them, countries like Hungary or Poland, pinned by the EU for breaches of respect for the rule of law, Mr. Fabius blasted, also without naming them, "officials", "in even within our borders ", which" leave doubt "on the need to respect" the decisions of the Constitutional Council, even the existence of this one ".
Several politicians, particularly on the right or the far right, have recently vehemently criticized the Constitutional Council.
Starting with the polemicist Eric Zemmour who called for "getting rid of the legal constraints of the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice, the Constitutional Council" to implement his plan on immigration.
"All the recent decisions of the Constitutional Council are opposed to greater protection of the French. (...) Let's stop with naivety", for his part rebelled the deputy LR Eric Ciotti last May, when the Wise Men had censored from the provisions of the Global Security Act.
Mr. Fabius therefore invited Thursday "each and everyone, at the threshold of major electoral deadlines, to properly measure what really is the rule of law".
"To lack attention to their decisions (of constitutional judges) or to attack them outright, to show at least what I would call + an indifference to the law +, it is ultimately the very principle of the rule of law and the democracy that is weakened by feeding crises by another crisis which could end up being even deeper than the others, "Mr. Fabius again warned.
© 2022 AFP