(Paris) The debates in the French National Assembly were seriously disrupted on Tuesday after the Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti gave the president of the group of right-wing deputies who had just recalled his legal concerns.
During discussions on a text for a mandatory ineligibility sentence against perpetrators of violence, the president of the group Les Républicains (LR, right) Olivier Marleix mentioned several cases concerning members of the presidential camp, including the Minister of Justice.
Eric Dupond-Moretti gave him two arms of honor, which he acknowledged, ensuring “regret” these gestures, which according to him were “not addressed to the deputy Marleix” but to the attack “to the presumption of innocence”.
A tenor of the bar, he is the target of complaints from magistrates’ unions and the anti-corruption association Anticor, who accuse him of having taken advantage of his position as minister to settle accounts with judges whom he had opposed when he was attorney.
He has been prosecuted since July 2021 by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), empowered to try ministers, which in October 2022 ordered his referral to trial, a first for a serving Minister of Justice. His lawyers filed an appeal.
After a suspension of the session which hardly calmed the spirits, the debates resumed following the apologies presented by Mr. Dupond-Moretti.
