Elisabeth Borne said on Wednesday April 12 that she no longer understood certain positions of the League for Human Rights (LDH), whose interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, wanted to “look at” public subsidies. “I have a lot of respect for what the LDH has embodied, [but] I no longer understand some of its positions,” the Prime Minister told the Senate.
“This misunderstanding (…) came to light in his ambiguities in the face of radical Islamism. And she’s been comforting for a few months,” she added. Asked by Agence France-Presse (AFP), the president of the LDH, Patrick Baudouin, said he was “surprised at the distortion” of the position of the association founded in 1898. “The amalgam made by Ms. Borne bristles and revolts me. This is the fight that I have led almost all my life,” reacted Mr. Baudouin, calling on the Prime Minister to “appease the debate and not [to] make things worse”:
“I don’t impugn her intentions, but I find that she gives in to little sirens who drag her into words that are not acceptable to us (…) I know it’s a little music which runs on the side of some of our adversaries located rather on the right, even on the extreme right. »
The president of the LDH asks to be received
The head of government also recalled that the LDH had recently “attacked a decree prohibiting the transport of weapons by destination to Sainte-Soline” (Deux-Sèvres), theaters of violence between demonstrators opposed to the megabasins and the police. In this regard, Mr. Baudouin underlined that the LDH did not question the ban on the carrying of weapons but contested the definition chosen, which disregarded the case law of the Constitutional Council refusing the extension a priori of the notion of weapon. to any object that can be used as a projectile. “I wrote to Mrs. Borne to ask her for an appointment. I am ready for a public debate, to expose, to exchange, possibly in relation to the criticisms that are made of us, “he added.
Ms. Borne assured that there was “no question of lowering the subsidy of this or that” association in principle, wishing, “like all members of the government, that the associations supporting human rights continue their action monitoring, moreover largely financed by the State and the communities”. However, for her, “dialogue with associations on their actions is also a responsibility, when it comes to public funding”.
Mr. Darmanin, during hearings before Parliament last week, had declared that “the subsidy given by the State” to the LDH “deserves to be looked at within the framework of the actions which have been carried out”. It had caused an uproar on the left. The LDH, an association founded in 1898, has deployed citizen observers during demonstrations in recent weeks to, among other things, document the policing system.
“Demonstrating is a fundamental right, it is not by excusing violence that we defend it, on the contrary,” said Ms. Borne. “He must be able to practice in safety. “So we will continue to act to protect this right to protect the demonstrators, to protect the French,” she argued, paying “tribute” to the police and gendarmes who ensure “republican order”. For her, the call for support for the LDH published on the front page of L’Humanité “essentially” reflects the “attachment” of the signatories to its “collective history”.