Didier Migaud, former president of the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life, in Paris, May 7, 2022. LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
One thing is certain: there will be a radical change of style at Place Vendôme. It will no longer be Eric Dupond-Moretti, 63, a former criminal lawyer with a fiery temperament, who enjoys oratorical jousts, who will occupy the seat of Minister of Justice. The new Minister of Justice – with a very “public finance” profile – has much less rough edges: Didier Migaud, 72, a former socialist, former president of the Court of Auditors, had been president of the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP) since 2020. An important symbol, his name was the first mentioned in the protocol order, during the government announcement, Saturday evening, September 21.
Read also | Live: for Olivier Faure, the Barnier government is “the most right-wing of the Fifth Republic”
Add to your selections
The magistrates’ union (USM, majority) welcomed this appointment without hostility, unlike that of Mr. Dupond-Moretti in July 2020. The union had then described the lawyer’s arrival at the Chancellery as “declaration of war”. “Didier Migaud has an idea of how justice works through his former position as head of the Court of Auditors. His place in the protocol order is an interesting indication of the priorities that the government intends to give to judicial action, explains Ludovic Friat, the president of USM. We need these symbols because we are worried about the constitution of the Prime Minister’s office where justice does not have an autonomous pole. The fear is that justice will be an accessory of the interior.”
On the side of the Magistrates’ Union (SM), the reception is also very cautious and a little cooler: “Didier Migaud is mainly known as a budget expert, we know nothing about his project for justice so it is too early to react. But, within such a government, with Bruno Retailleau inside in particular, we doubt that a humanist and progressive vision of justice can be carried, fears the left-wing organization. We need a minister who will defend the rule of law in the face of attacks and threats and who will also defend a strong justice system that guarantees equality for all before the law.”
The break with the former Minister of Justice is, in reality, multiple. Thus, Eric Dupond-Moretti was accused of conflicts of interest when, a few weeks after his appointment at Place Vendôme, he ordered the General Inspectorate of Justice to conduct administrative investigations against magistrates with whom he had had a run-in when he was a lawyer. A trial even took place before the Court of Justice of the Republic, at the end of which Mr. Dupond-Moretti was acquitted. His successor, for his part, was tasked precisely with tracking down potential conflicts of interest at the HATVP.
