"This behavior has no place in the hemicycle," Elisabeth Borne argued to the minister on Tuesday evening in a telephone interview, the entourage of the head of government told AFP.

The Prime Minister had to take charge of this reprimand when Emmanuel Macron did not mention the incident on Wednesday in the Council of Ministers, according to government spokesman Olivier Véran.

However, the head of the Les Républicains deputies Olivier Marleix asked the President of the Republic to "draw the consequences" of this affair.

On Tuesday, Eric Dupond-Moretti let his sometimes eruptive temperament speak for itself during questions to the government.

Furious that Olivier Marleix lists the convictions, indictments or investigations concerning members of the presidential camp, including the minister, he made two arms of honor.

Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti (G) at the National Assembly on March 7, 2023 in Paris © Thomas SAMSON / AFP

If the cameras did not capture these gestures, sparing the former lawyer a loop of sharing images on social networks, the oppositions were immediately indignant on their benches.

"You do not have to do arm of honor in the precincts of the National Assembly, Mr. Minister", also rebuffed the president of the session, Élodie Jacquier-Laforge (MoDem).

Eric Dupond-Moretti assured that he mimicked the "arms of honor to the presumption of innocence" symbolically made according to him Olivier Marleix, but also said that he "regrets" his gesture.

Olivier Marleix deplored an "insult to national representation".

"It would have been a deputy from La France insoumise, he would have been excluded, I have no doubt, for 15 days".

The president of the deputies LR Olivier Marleix, on February 14, 2023 at the National Assembly in Paris © Ludovic MARIN / AFP / Archives

"An inopportune, scandalous, inappropriate act", also choked the president of the Republicans Eric Ciotti.

"Impunity"

“We all have to be absolutely exemplary. That is to say, we have to stand together and behave even better in the context of a public debate than we behave in the daily", conceded Olivier Véran in front of the press.

For her part, the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet sent a letter to the Prime Minister, of which AFP obtained a copy.

"You know that I demand from deputies that they themselves be exemplary with regard to the institution and the government. In return, I expect the same exemplarity from ministers", she asks. .

A lack of sanction signs "a kind of impunity" and sends "a disastrous signal", estimates the socialist deputy Jérôme Guedj, demanding the resignation of the Keeper of the Seals.

Just like the boss of the group of deputies RN Marine Le Pen, for whom these arms of honor "discredit" the minister.

Eric Dupond-Moretti is one of the heavyweights of the government.

Appointed Keeper of the Seals in the summer of 2020, he was reappointed after the 2022 presidential election. And this despite an indictment for illegal taking of interests and his stormy relationship with the magistrates.

When he was a media lawyer, reputed to be grumpy, he was feared by magistrates and, sometimes, by his colleagues, for his "rants" in the courtrooms.

With his intimidating stature and voice, he impressed, bullied and shook the courts of assizes all over France.

His arrival at the National Assembly did not fail to arouse the curiosity of the deputies.

Some of them have sometimes sought to tickle him or even challenge him during question sessions with the government.

© 2023 AFP