Judge Jean-Michel Gentil holds a record. “I had been in post as an examining magistrate for thirty-seven years. It will be difficult to beat, “laughs the magistrate. First vice-president in charge of the investigation at the Paris court, he joined the gendarmerie as number two of the IGGN, the General Inspectorate of the National Gendarmerie, last September. “His experience, his expertise, his outside view, constitute a real added value for the quality of the decisions that we take collectively”, explains this Thursday General Alain Pidoux. The senior officer will leave the gendarmerie at the start of the school year. And Judge Gentil is now expected to succeed him at the head of the inspection, which he has been commanding for three years.
“I arrived to take the place of deputy, and nothing else”, however assures the magistrate, who began his career as an examining magistrate in Dunkirk. After seven years spent in the North, he was appointed to Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) in the 1990s, where he attacked Parisian pimping networks. “I was then eighteen years at the head of courts specializing in the fight against organized crime. My last position was the national jurisdiction, in Paris, which I coordinated. »
The former president of the French Association of Investigating Magistrates is particularly known to the general public for having conducted the investigations in the context of the Bettencourt Affair, between 2010 and 2013. Reputed to be independent and opinionated, he had made the headlines in placing the former President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, under examination. The latter finally benefited from a dismissal in this case.
“As my last job, I dreamed of it! »
Then the magistrate decided to respond to the call for tenders launched by the IGGN. “There was a call for applications, 17 responded for the position, including four very high-level magistrates, who were interviewed,” reports General Alain Pidoux. “The position interested me a lot, it’s very clear”, underlines Jean-Michel Gentil. “What I liked is that the values represented within the IGGN are the same as those of an examining magistrate: transparency, impartiality, we go to the end of the investigations. »
During his career, Judge Jean-Michel Gentil has handled many sensitive cases “which involve either police officers or gendarmes”. “So we are used to internal investigations. “At the IGGN, he brought” the look of the magistrate “. It can thus help investigators to distinguish between “what could be perceived as a somewhat firm command and what could be called harassment”.
Since his arrival, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has wanted to appoint magistrates to head the inspections of the police and the gendarmerie. Agnès Thibaut-Lecuivre thus succeeded Commissioner Brigitte Jullien as head of the IGPN last July. Judge Gentil is expected to take over from General Pidoux in a few months. “There would thus be a certain continuity”, underlines the senior officer, who will retire from July 31. His decree of appointment has not yet been signed. But the magistrate already imagines himself at the head of the IGGN. “You need someone at the end of their career, who has had a certain freedom of tone, independence. I too will stop in a while. So as a last post, I dreamed about it! »