After the appointment of Gérald Darmanin as Minister of Justice, Monday December 23, the legal world is, to say the least, circumspect. Three months after leaving Place Beauvau, where he spent four years, the former Minister of the Interior now takes the head of the Ministry of Justice in the new government formed by François Bayrou. A magistrate regrets, for example, that “the Ministry of Justice is the trash can of the Republic”.
Gérald Darmanin, coming from a very vertical ministry, where the minister gives orders, arrives at Place Vendôme, where magistrates are supposed to be independent of political power. But, last November, the deputy from the North was indignant that judges could make Marine Le Pen ineligible. “It would be deeply shocking if Marine Le Pen were deemed ineligible and, thus, unable to stand before the vote of the French people”he reacted on X, on November 13, after the requisitions in the trial of the parliamentary assistants of the National Front.
At the Union of Magistrates, we weigh our words. Its president, Ludovic Friat, takes note of this appointment and expects pledges: “Before I worry, it surprises me, because clearly it was not one of the names we thought we would find under the big government Christmas tree.” The magistrate recognizes that Gérald Darmanin “was in support of the staff of the Ministry of the Interior”. “We expect no less from him at the level of the Ministry of Justice”he emphasizes.
Precisely, from Monday evening, for his first reaction on social networks, the new Minister of Justice said his “total support for magistrates, clerks, prison officers, judicial youth protection officers and all auxiliaries of justice”. He also claimed that “firmness, speed and proximity will guide [son] action to defend the victims”.
In 2021, Gérald Darmanin joined a police demonstration which caused controversy in front of the National Assembly in Paris. “The police’s problem is justice”had launched a union official. The Minister of the Interior tempered these comments a few days later in an interview with Parisianasserting that “the problem of the police is the weakness of the means of justice”.
It will be precisely expected from the budget that his predecessor, Didier Migaud, had managed to preserve before the motion of censure. “The first of Gérald Darmanin's labors of Hercules will be to do as well as Didier Migaud in terms of budget”estimated Ludovic Friat, president of the USM, Monday evening, on franceinfo. Justice is waiting for hires.
And then, there are major projects, some of which are shared with his Interior partner, Bruno Retailleau, such as the fight against drug trafficking. Others are more suited to justice, to judge more quickly or carry out sentences even better. Working groups had been launched by Didier Migaud and must submit their reports in February. “There is a problem of non-enforcement of sentences in this country”said Prime Minister François Bayrou on Monday evening on BFMTV.
