Retiring Attorney General François Molins reflects on his 46-year career in the French judiciary: Interview

In a few weeks, François Molins, one of the most famous faces of the judicial institution, will have to hang up the ermine, pushed by the age limit to almost 70 years. The Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, one of the two highest positions in the judiciary, is retiring after 46 years in the service of justice, moving from light to shadow. Interview.

He will remain in the collective memory as the face of anti-terrorism. A man whose words, precise, were expected as much as feared in our most troubled hours. Within the judiciary, he will also remain the one who knew how to defend the judicial authority. The pressures don’t matter. On June 30, François Molins will retire at almost 70 years old. Not quite serene about the state of justice in France. Not quite ready to hang up either.

Will you miss your job?

François Molins: It’s a bit strange feeling because I would have continued a bit if the law had given me the possibility, but there I reached the age limit. Of course I’m going to miss it, because you don’t erase 46 years like that. Justice has been my life’s commitment so obviously I am not indifferent to stopping. I will try to be useful in other ways, transmit and share what I have been able to experience throughout these years and also enjoy some things because I haven’t had much leisure time until then. This is not a page to turn. It’s not really a relief because things are there and even if I leave, they won’t get out of my head even if I stop my professional activity.

For nearly half a century, you have often been on the front line through several sensitive cases: the Furiani tragedy, the political and financial investigations into Jérôme Cahuzac and Nicolas Sarkozy, or even the attacks. How do you view your journey?

FM: Indeed, in most of the positions that I have held, I have had to manage very heavy things. It started in Corsica where I had to deal with the prosecution side of the Furiani file (Editor’s note: on May 5, 1992, a stand collapsed in the Furiani stadium causing the death of 19 people and injuring 2,357 spectators). And then afterwards in other positions, notably in Bobigny then in Paris, I had to deal with very important matters. So it’s true that it’s a reflection that I’ve often made to myself: am I not a bit of a black cat?

In October 2005, you were at the head of the Bobigny public prosecutor’s office when the suburbs flared up after the death of two teenagers, electrocuted in a transformer after a chase with the police. What do you remember from this case?

FM: This dossier first signals the difficulty and complexity of the relations that there may be in this department, Seine-Saint-Denis, between young people and the police. I’ve always wondered whether it’s normal, and I don’t think it’s normal, that young people who haven’t done anything have a reflex to flee just because they see “blue”, because they see the police coming. The second thing that struck me was the intensity of the event that we lived through for eight days, the riots to be managed every night, before President Chirac decreed a state of emergency in a number of departments. Finally, concerning communication, I think that at the time, I did not know how to find the words that perhaps should have been used. The difficulty is that I still don’t know today, more than 20 years later, the words that should have been spoken and that perhaps indicates the difficulty of the task.

You have been criticized in particular for having delayed opening an investigation into the deaths of these teenagers, Zyed and Bouna. Do you have any regrets?

FM: There was no delay contrary to certain lawsuits which were made to me. The day we learned that the tapping raised the question of the non-intervention of the police in relation to the escape of the young people in the power station, the police were instructed to close the procedure. They worked all night and brought it to us in the morning. In the hours that followed, we seized an investigating judge. So I disagree. We did our job back then.

You stayed five years at the Bobigny prosecutor’s office. What memories do you have of it?

FM: I have extremely strong, extremely rich memories. I worked there at a time when there were far fewer resources than today, when we were sometimes perhaps a bit alone. And when we lack resources, it creates solidarity. I retain the image of a kind of showcase, of a laboratory that is always a bit at the forefront because the situation is such that we are always experimenting with new ways of working. And that is extremely interesting. I also realize that today, the situation is still difficult despite reinforcements in personnel and additional resources that have been obtained. I hope one day it will work out. But it’s sad to say it like that, this department is faced with such levels of delinquency that despite the additional means, it continues to be forced to have a degraded treatment in terms of criminal response.

The difficulty, you will be confronted with it again during the Charlie Hebdo killings or even on November 13, 2015 as a public prosecutor. How did you experience these events?

FM : It started with the Merah case (Editor’s note: in March 2012seven people die in a series of Islamist attacks in Toulouse and Montauban) which was a strong first flasher. And the departures to Syria. From March 2012 to the summer of 2018, it was dark years of very high intensity. We were permanently on deck without saving either our time or our energy. And those are things I will never forget. One has the impression of being caught in an infernal mechanism from which one will never emerge. It’s extremely stressful and extremely scary.

From 2016, we had calculated an attack or a planned attack every four to five weeks. So when we actually saw the four to five weeks go by during which nothing had happened, we began to tense up a little, saying to ourselves what is going to fall on us? And in the days that followed, we had something. I’m going to use a sporting metaphor, we were head on the grindstone, so with the double concern of always dealing with these files, as best as possible. It is somewhat in this perspective that we are located.

A page that was not so easy to turn. Even when in 2018 you were appointed Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, one of the two highest positions in the judiciary?

FM: Indeed, I recognize that the day I left the Paris prosecutor’s office, I had a few difficult months since overnight I no longer lived in a hurry, I no longer had calls on my phone. I changed my professional life. So it’s true that I had six to seven difficult months in terms of adaptation. But I continue to be interested in terrorism, to follow it very closely, to give conferences, to have links with my foreign colleagues. In particular, I followed all the judgments handed down by the Court of Cassation to broaden the scope of compensation for victims of terrorism. And I will continue to be interested in it in the same way when I am retired. Above all, we must not think that because we are at the bottom of the wave, it is over. I’ll take an example: for a few weeks, there has been a resurgence of Corsican terrorism after a period of calm. We actually have less jihadist terrorism today, but nothing tells us that tomorrow it won’t reappear in other forms that will be more inspired terrorism than projected terrorism. And then especially today, we have the very strong danger of the rise in range of terrorism from the ultra right and the ultra left. And that, we cannot ignore.

Since you were appointed to the Court of Cassation, you have often defended loud and clear a mistreated judicial authority. Are you worried about those left behind?

FM: We can only welcome the additional means obtained by the ministry, in the budgets, in the recruitment of personnel. But it will take several years to see the effects, because there is training time and because justice has many more skills today than 46 years ago. We put the judge everywhere, the judge is at the center of all social conflicts. And then, you have to have the courage and the vision to review the organizations with fund changes that are still not there. What I remember is that justice is not sufficiently considered in this country, far too often reduced to the rank of a public service and an ordinary administration, whereas justice is a public service with constitutional value. This is something that worries me about the future, I have constantly reminded you of this in recent years. I do think that justice must regain its specific place within the State.