The Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castera, was indicted in December 2023 in the investigation by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) after Noël Le Graët’s defamation complaint, Le Monde learned on Thursday March 14 from a source close to the matter, confirming information from Agence-France-Presse (AFP). In a press release, Rémy Heitz, attorney general at the Court of Cassation, who acts as public prosecutor at the CJR, confirmed the indictment of the minister by the investigating committee for “public defamation of an individual”.
A judicial investigation has been open to the CJR, the only court authorized to judge ministers in the exercise of their functions, since June 21, to examine the complaint of the former boss of French football, who accuses the minister of held in February 2023 on its management of the French Football Federation (FFF).
At the opening of the judicial investigation, in November 2023, the Ministry of Sports assured that Ms. Oudéa-Castera was “calm” and “ready to respond”, which she did “publicly and on different occasions in recent years. months, to the unfounded accusations of Mr. Le Graët. Ms. Oudéa-Castera’s lawyer, for his part, did not wish to comment.
Noël Le Graët resigned with a bang in February 2023 from the FFF, which he had led since 2011, after a damning audit report from the General Inspectorate of Education, Sport and Research (IGESR) on his management , amid accusations of sexual harassment.
“Inappropriate behavior”
According to the report’s conclusions, “NLG” no longer has “the legitimacy necessary to administer and represent” French football. At issue: a “very centralized exercise of power”, “excessive consumption of alcohol”, “media excesses”, “inappropriate behavior towards women” and “failures in the governance of the FFF” .
The IGESR inspectors considered in this report that Mr. Le Graët “no longer has the legitimacy necessary to administer and represent French football”, particularly given his “inappropriate behavior (…) towards screw women.”
A few hours after his departure, Mr. Le Graët’s lawyer announced he was filing a complaint, claiming that Ms. Oudéa-Castera had “lied” about this report. He also highlighted a difference between the summary of the document, published on February 15, 2023, which mentioned “words” and SMS messages, “words or writings that are ambiguous for some and of a clearly sexual nature for others,” and its entirety.
The procedure in matters of press law makes it almost automatic, after a defamation complaint, the referral to an investigating judge and the indictment of the author of the remarks, the substantive debate taking place at the hearing . However, the case law is different before the CJR.
For example, in 2014 the Requests Committee closed a defamation complaint from the controversial polemicist Dieudonné against Manuel Valls, then Minister of the Interior, immediately considering that the offense of defamation was not sufficiently characterized.
