Embarrassed by his arms of honor, the executive reprimands, without sanctioning him, Dupond-Moretti

March 8, 2023

The outcry aroused by the arms of honor of Eric Dupond-Moretti in the hemicycle of the National Assembly embarrasses the executive: he condemns the behavior of the Minister of Justice, but does not sanction him while several voices in the opposition are calling for his resignation.

“This behavior has no place in the hemicycle,” Elisabeth Borne argued to the minister on Tuesday evening in a telephone interview, the entourage of the head of government told AFP.

The Prime Minister had to take charge of this reprimand when Emmanuel Macron did not mention the incident on Wednesday in the Council of Ministers, according to government spokesman Olivier Véran.

However, the head of the Les Républicains deputies Olivier Marleix asked the President of the Republic to “draw the consequences” of this affair.

On Tuesday, Eric Dupond-Moretti let his sometimes eruptive temperament speak for itself. Furious that Olivier Marleix lists the convictions, indictments or investigations concerning members of the presidential camp, including the minister, he made two arms of honor.

According to the minutes of the session, published on Wednesday, the minister accompanied these gestures with this question: “And the presumption of innocence, sir, what do you make of it?”

“You do not have to do arm of honor in the precincts of the National Assembly, Mr. Minister”, also rebuffed the president of the session, Élodie Jacquier-Laforge (MoDem).

Eric Dupond-Moretti assured that he mimicked the “arms of honor to the presumption of innocence” symbolically made according to him Olivier Marleix, but also said that he “regrets” his gesture, before apologizing.

Olivier Marleix deplored an “insult to national representation”. “It would have been a deputy from La France insoumise, he would have been excluded, I have no doubt, for 15 days”.

“An inopportune, scandalous, inappropriate act”, also choked the president of the Republicans Eric Ciotti.

Yours and that we behave even better in the context of a public debate that we behave in everyday life”, conceded Olivier Véran in front of the press.

For her part, the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet sent a letter to the Prime Minister, of which AFP obtained a copy. “You know that I demand from deputies that they themselves be exemplary with regard to the institution and the government. In return, I expect the same exemplarity from ministers”, she asks. .

If the cameras did not capture this moment, sparing the former lawyer a loop of sharing images on social networks, the oppositions were immediately indignant on their benches.

“We all have to be absolutely exemplary. That is to say, we have to be

A lack of sanction signs “a kind of impunity” and sends “a disastrous signal”, estimates the socialist deputy Jérôme Guedj, demanding the resignation of the Keeper of the Seals. Just like the boss of the group of deputies RN Marine Le Pen, for whom these arms of honor “discredit” the minister.

Eric Dupond-Moretti is one of the heavyweights of the government. Appointed Keeper of the Seals in the summer of 2020, he was reappointed after the 2022 presidential election. And this despite an indictment for illegal taking of interests and his stormy relationship with the magistrates.

When he was a media lawyer, reputed to be grumpy, he was feared by magistrates and, sometimes, by his colleagues, for his “rants” in the courtrooms. With his intimidating stature and voice, he impressed, bullied and shook the courts of assizes all over France.

His arrival at the National Assembly did not fail to arouse the curiosity of the deputies. Some of them have sometimes sought to titillate him or even challenge him during question sessions with the government.