With the approach of the presidential election of 2022, Emmanuel Macron has he immunized against the slightest risk of legal action? This is what several Internet users have been claiming in recent days, citing the same source each time: the daily Le Figaro.
” And this morning, Le Figaro confirms that Macron has classified all documents concerning the Covid crisis as a defense secret to prohibit any investigation or investigation for several decades. What does he want to hide from the French? “, Thus supports a copy-pasted sentence on several social networks, from Twitter to Telegram.
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👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇And this morning, Le Figaro confirms that Macron has classified all documents concerning the Covid crisis as a defense secret to prohibit any investigation or investigation for several decades.
What does he want to hide from the French? pic.twitter.com/jJt6TrJKnQ– BAN 🥕 🥕 🥕 (@ BAN05063867) November 15, 2021
As proof, this statement is sometimes accompanied by a screenshot of an article in the Figaro, of which the introductory paragraph indicates: “The deliberations made in the Sanitary Defense Council are classified as defense secrets, obstructing the work of the investigators of the Court of Justice of the Republic on the management of the pandemic. ”
If this extract is authentic, the interpretation which is made of it online is erroneous. Because the defense secrecy in question is not a newly applied measure. And it applies specifically, as recently explained Le Figaro, to the Defense Councils regularly held by Emmanuel Macron during the health crisis.
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The article from Figaro in question was originally released on September 10, 2021 before being updated on November 15 in a revamped version. But this is the introduction of its first version, entitled “Covid-19: do the decisions taken by the Defense Council make the government unassailable?” », Which is now included in the screenshot, as we can see
in its archived version by the Wayback Machine tool.
At the time, the “Verification” section of the daily looked at the possible legal consequences of the defense secret classification of the Defense Councils held by Emmanuel Macron during the Covid-19 crisis.
The content of the article, in its revised version two months later, remains essentially the same. “It has been updated to reflect on more recent news,” confirms its author at 20 minutes. In this case, the publication of a work relating to defense secrecy, which resulted in a new article title (“Covid-19: are the key decisions in the management of the pandemic classified as defense secrecy?” “) And a different introduction:” This is what Pascal Jouary, author of Top secret. The black book, in Marianne. Internet users fear that the government is seeking legal cover. Is right ? “
A strict protocol
As the Elysee explains on his site, the National Defense and Security Council (CDSN) is “a Council of Ministers in a restricted […] to coordinate the national security and defense policy “of which” the participants are bound by defense secrecy “. If the existence of these CDSNs was institutionalized in 1958, they saw their missions extended by a decree of 2009 and have become weekly since the Nice attack of July 14, 2016, “to better respond to the terrorist threat”.
In 2020, faced with the Covid-19 epidemic, Emmanuel Macron set up health defense councils, specifically dedicated to this unprecedented crisis. “There sit the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Defense, the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of the Economy and the Minister of Labor, to which can be joined major public institutions in the health sector ”, details the Elysée website, indicating that “their decisions are based on the recommendations [du] Covid-19 Scientific Council created in March 2020 at the request of the Ministry of Health ”.
Like all the other CDSNs, these health defense councils are subject to defense secrecy, according to a strict protocol recently described. through Vanity Fair : “Before entering, participants must, for example, hand over their mobile phones. They are then given a notepad with each page crossed out by a “defense secret” in red capital letters. ”
A defense secret long criticized by the opposition
And this particularity was quickly pointed out by certain elected representatives of the opposition, including Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who affirmed for example, in November 2020 that “people who [composent le Conseil de défense sanitaire], being bound by defense secrecy, are therefore placed out of any appeal before the High Court of Justice ”.
The Elysee defended itself from such accusations in the wake, explaining in particular to 20 minutes never to have “forgotten democratic control”. “Decisions such as curfews and re-containment were taken by the Defense Council, then translated into legal texts and therefore submitted to the control of Parliament,” he said.
In practice, if the lifting of defense secrecy can be requested by possible investigators, it seems concretely difficult to obtain, as explained by Benjamin Morel, lecturer in public law at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas. to Figaro : “Legally, the Elysee can not veto, on the other hand, politically, the Minister of Defense will seek the approval of the President of the Republic”.