Basically, we wanted to attend a course by François Molins. Retired since June 2023, the former magistrate, specialized in terrorism issues, has been teaching at the Sciences Po law school in Paris since the end of January for three months. But he declined our request, offering us in return a more traditional interview. “I’m not sure that it would happen in the same way if there was a third party outside the students,” he explains to us when he welcomes us into a meeting room of the prestigious institution. “It’s important for speech to be freed. We must be able to say everything here. I start from the principle that the university must be founded on freedom of thought and opinion. »
For around thirty minutes, the former Attorney General at the Court of Cassation spoke about his new life, “based on transmission and sharing through teaching, conferences or training”.
How did you go from magistrate to teacher?
I wanted to be a magistrate and only that. But I could have missed the competition. I would then have continued my studies, completed a DEA, a thesis, and I would have tried to be a teacher. It’s something that has always appealed to me. I had some experience as a lecturer when I was in Lyon, thirty years ago.
As prosecutor of the Republic of Paris and attorney general, I always gave a lot of conferences, often at the university, with which I always tried to develop links. Through this, I was led to do things at Sciences Po, either alone or with my American colleague and friend, the former New York prosecutor, Cyrus Vance. I was asked, a few months before my retirement, to give lessons here, I accepted. Sciences Po is a beautiful place, it’s normal to want to come there.
The general public discovered you during the wave of attacks in the 2010s, through your press conferences. Is the exercise somewhat the same?
It’s not quite the same thing, because the students have a higher level of law than the average of our fellow citizens. But in both cases, you have to try to be educational, to make yourself understood. Basically, it’s a bit the same exercise.
What do you teach students?
I have a 24 hour course on terrorism. I try to cover both the legal aspects – criminal law and criminal procedure as applied to terrorism – and the practical aspects. I have been in office for forty years, I am not an academic and I have a very practical view of things. This is the advantage of the magistrate who teaches: I have seen the practical application of the law and all anti-terrorism legislation. I think it’s interesting for students, because it helps illustrate the course with examples.
It’s a material that is constantly evolving…
Our political leaders are always keen to improve the police, judicial and intelligence systems to better combat the phenomenon. So by definition, it never stops. But even the most perfect legislation could not prevent attacks. There always will be, unfortunately.
Don’t you want to detach yourself a little from terrorism?
I was still specialized in this issue, I have more legitimacy to give a course on it than to teach the law of obligations! But I have lots of activities, I talk a bit about everything, I’m not just into terrorism.
How did you develop your lessons?
It took me a little time, I had to think about the structure of my course. I have divided it into two main parts: the legal aspects and the practical aspects. In the first part, there is the general introduction, the definition of terrorism, criminal conspiracy… And after, there are more practical variations with crisis management, the judicialization of intelligence, international cooperation, communication… I then had to enrich my course with case law references, create a bibliography… This represents a lot of work, especially in the first year.
The lessons are quite interactive. This is not the lecture course I experienced when I was a student. The goal is to make students think and get them involved. I regularly speak to them and ask them questions. I have a group of 25 students who are destined either for the judiciary, or for lawyers, or to become police commissioners.
Does this new experience bring you anything?
After everything I’ve known, it’s a way of structuring thought. I am led to ask myself questions, to take a new look and to deepen the legal aspects of the legal texts that I have applied. This changes my thoughts and allows me to progress.
Do you teach elsewhere?
I run a chair on strategic independence at the Catholic Institute of Higher Studies of Vendée, with a magistrate friend and the former general of the Paris firefighters, Jean-Claude Gallet. I also give a lot of conferences. I am the sponsor of a class of ENM, 2023, and of two classes of students in Nice and Besançon. It’s not just Paris, we also need to pay attention to the provinces and small and medium-sized universities. I am sensitive to this because I too studied in a very small university, that of Perpignan.
After forty years spent in the judiciary, didn’t you want to have a more peaceful retirement?
I have always said, and it is a personal choice, that in retirement, I did not want to operate in degraded mode. That is to say, remaining in justice, doing the same things, but without responsibility. It didn’t interest me at all. I made the choice to have a different life based on transmission and sharing through teaching, conferences or training. I teach in the public sector, in the private sector, I am completely free. I also do training abroad. I am in a team, financed by European funds, and I train magistrates and police officers to teach them how to better fight money laundering in Latin America.
But all this will be regulated slowly. Today, I have as much work as when I was at the Court of Cassation. It is also linked to a particular situation. On top of all that, I have my book In the name of the French peoplewhich was released by Flammarion on February 21 and I have to promote it.
What exactly pushed you to write this work?
It’s a project that I started four years ago, which has been brewing for a long time. I had lots of offers from publishers, which got me thinking about it. The problem was that I didn’t write little notebooks every evening. It was therefore necessary to pull the threads of memory over forty years. I wrote this book to explain the profession of prosecutor and report on my actions
Do you miss the judiciary?
Honestly no, I moved on. The real break in my career was when I left the Paris prosecutor’s office, it was not retirement. I had a second life at the Court of Cassation, it was something very different from all the prosecutor jobs I had before. Now it’s a third life.
There is a lot of talk at the moment about the lack of resources in the justice system and the difficult work of magistrates. What would you say to young people who are considering this profession?
That they will exercise a magnificent profession, in the service of the Justice of the Republic. The means will arrive. They must maintain their passion, courage and enthusiasm.