Oudéa-Castéra: defamation complaint against former Minister of Education dismissed

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Mathilde Kaczkowski / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 6:05 p.m., February 15, 2024

The complaint from the National Union of Public Employees of National Education (SNAPEN) against the former Minister of Education Amélie Oudéa-Castéra for her comments justifying the schooling of her children in the private sector was closed without further action, announced Thursday the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation. The complaint, filed on January 22 for "public defamation of a body", was closed on Tuesday by the requests commission of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), Rémy Heitz said in a press release.

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This decision is based "on the fact that none of the incriminated comments target this union, while the provisions (...) of the law of July 29, 1881 on freedom of the press, relating to defamation, have not been not for the protection of a profession taken as a whole, and that they involve an attack on a specific natural or legal person", specifies the Attorney General. “There is no doubt for us that the comments were defamatory and that they reflected on the entire profession. It is unthinkable that they would go unpunished, even less in the face of the general indignation provoked,” reacted to the AFP the union's lawyer, Me Vincent Brengarth.

In the midst of controversy over the schooling of her three sons in the private Parisian establishment Stanislas, Amélie Oudéa-Castera expressed her "frustration" in the face of "lots of hours which were not seriously replaced" at the Littré public school - from where she had taken her eldest son to put him in the private sector. This complaint aimed "to sanction these comments which affect the reputation of agents by discrediting public education and, more generally, to impose the respect due by the highest administrations to the latter", commented Gérard Lenfant, president of SNAPEN, who presents itself as an “apolitical” union.

A decision “susceptible to no appeal”

After 28 days at the Ministry of National Education marked by controversies, Amélie Oudéa-Castera lost this portfolio during the last reshuffle on February 8 but remains Minister of Sports and the Olympic Games, a position she has held since May 2022. This decision of the Requests Commission, made up of three magistrates from the seat of the Court of Cassation, two State Councilors and two senior advisers to the Court of Auditors, is not subject to any appeal", specifies Rémy Heitz.

The CJR is the only jurisdiction empowered to prosecute and judge members of the government for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions. The public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation represents the public prosecutor.