Summoned to explain the government’s handling of the Covid-19 outbreak before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe escaped an indictment Tuesday and was placed under favorable witness status in this case.
At the end of a first appearance questioning on Tuesday, the three judges of the CJR investigative commission placed the mayor of Le Havre in the intermediate status of assisted witness for endangering the lives of others and for voluntary abstention to fight a disaster. a source familiar with the matter said on Saturday, confirming information from Franceinfo.
Contacted, his lawyer, Me Emmanuel Marsigny, declined to comment.
The magistrates initially planned to indict him, but in the end they felt that they had not collected at this stage the serious or concordant evidence necessary to initiate the proceedings.
Unless subsequently indicted, Édouard Philippe cannot be referred to the CJR court, the only court authorized to prosecute and try members of the government for crimes or offenses committed in the exercise of their functions.
His summons to the CJR had been announced for October 24, but the interrogation was brought forward by a week.
The former prime minister (2017-2020), now president of the political party close to the Orizzonti presidential majority and given among the contenders for the 2027 presidential elections, is criticized by some for not having arranged protective measures in favor of health personnel and exposed workers , nor of having anticipated the epidemic despite the alarms.
According to Le Monde, he also had to explain himself on maintaining the first round of the municipal elections on March 15 as the contamination intensified, and on the late activation of the inter-ministerial crisis unit (CIC) on March 17.
“I discuss energetically the indictments that I am accused of,” he assured the Parisian Mr. Philippe on 9 October.
Masks
The magistrates of the CJR, who since 7 July 2020 have been investigating the government’s management of the crisis, indicted in September 2021 Agnès Buzyn, Minister of Health between May 2017 and February 2020 and now the World Health Organization (WHO), for endanger the lives of others.
On the other hand, they put her as an assisted witness for voluntary abstention from fighting a disaster.
“From the beginning, I only thought about one thing: the coronavirus. We should have stopped everything, it was a masquerade, “he told Le Monde on March 17, 2020 about the electoral process, while France was confined.
Former health minister Olivier Véran, now a government spokesperson, is also targeted by this instruction, but has not yet been heard.
“We were wrong about the masks, no more and no less”, he admitted in September at the release of a book, presenting his “apologies”.
In March 2020, while the Covid-19 epidemic hit France, the health authorities considered it “useless” to extend the use of masks to the entire population. At the same time, masks were missing in France.
The Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, is criminally irresponsible for acts committed in the exercise of his functions.
In this case, several searches were carried out in October 2020, in particular at the homes and offices of MM. Véran and Philippe, Mrs Buzyn and former government member Sibeth Ndiaye.
At the same time, since November 2020, the investigating judges of the Paris public health center have been investigating the responsibilities of the state administration, which has also been questioned by several hundred complainants.
To date, according to data from Public Health France, the Covid-19 epidemic has caused 156,000 deaths in France.
In the past, two prime ministers have been indicted by the CJR, then released: Laurent Fabius for the tainted blood case and Édouard Balladur for covert funding of his 1995 presidential campaign.
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