Less than a month after the closing of the judicial investigation, the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation François Molins, who represents the public prosecutor before the CJR, announced in a press release on Tuesday that he had requested a trial the day before for the minister, judging that there were "sufficient charges" against him for this.

In a statement sent to AFP, his lawyers, Me Christophe Ingrain and Me Rémi Lorrain, expressed their "astonishment" to receive this final indictment so quickly.

"The calendar chosen by the Attorney General to communicate this indictment, a few days before the formation of a new government, when he still had a two-month deadline and he himself is directly concerned by the another file (known as the PNF) for having recommended the opening of the administrative investigation, does not fail to raise legitimate questions", they estimated.

"rushed communication"

The two lawyers also stressed that this "hasty communication" came when requests for acts they made, as the procedure allows, must be examined next week by the magistrates of the CJR.

According to the minister's lawyers, this latest development does not affect "in any way his determination and his serenity since he has always expressed his wish to be able to explain himself, when the time comes, before the judgment panel of the CJR" .

Eric Dupond-Moretti after a meeting at the Elysee Palace on July 7, 2021 Ludovic MARIN AFP / Archives

“This is a new procedural step”, for her part commented soberly to AFP Céline Parisot, president of the Union Syndicale des Magistrates (USM, majority).

She stressed that it was now up to the investigating committee of the CJR, the only jurisdiction empowered to prosecute and try ministers for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions, to take a final decision on a possible trial or not. of the minister.

Eric Dupond-Moretti, appointed to the government in the summer of 2020, is suspected of having taken advantage of his position to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had had trouble when he was a lawyer in two cases.

Complaints from magistrates' unions and the anticorruption association Anticor, denouncing two situations of conflict of interest since his arrival at the Chancellery, had given rise to the opening of a judicial investigation in 2021.

The first file concerns the administrative investigation that he ordered in September 2020 against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) who had had his detailed telephone bills peeled ("fadettes") when he was still a star of the bar.

In the other, he is accused of having instituted administrative proceedings against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Edouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-clients and whose methods he had criticized. cowboy".

The latter must go to a disciplinary hearing before the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) on July 20 and 21, according to sources familiar with the matter.

However, the dates for the hearing of the PNF magistrates have still not been fixed.

In July 2021, Eric Dupond-Moretti was indicted for acts of illegal taking of interest, a first for a practicing Minister of Justice.

He always hammered that he had only "follow the recommendations" of his administration.

Summoned in March and early April by the magistrates of the CJR to be re-examined on each of the two files, he refused to answer their questions.

The Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti arrives to be heard by the investigating magistrates of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), March 29, 2022 in Paris EMMANUEL DUNAND AFP / Archives

"Everything in the conduct of your information demonstrates your determination not to get to the truth on allegations that you have taken for granted from the outset, but to smear the reputation of a former lawyer whose only trial you are fueling which interests you, that of his illegitimacy to occupy the functions of Keeper of the Seals", he justified in a letter which he read to them in March and of which AFP then obtained a copy.

Chantal Arens, the president of the Court of Cassation, had "strongly regretted" these remarks and had then "recalled" the Keeper of the Seals to his role of "guarantor of the independence of justice".

© 2022 AFP