Throughout the ceremony, Jean-Claude waited for his master in the car. It is 5 p.m. when the Minister of Justice finally takes his place in the back of the sedan. The 4-year-old wire-haired dwarf dachshund welcomes him by barking and asking for paws. “He has a particular background,” Éric Dupond-Moretti tells us. “He was born in Ukraine, but before the war. When I came to the ministry, I had Irish setters. It was going to be complicated, so one of my friends who hunts every day took them. I wanted a small dog, so I could carry him around. I had the choice between that and a little Jack Russell. » A breeder friend brought him the puppy, then one year old, who was in Poland. He called him Jean-Claude, like his “hunting buddy”.
The rain begins to fall when the ministerial convoy leaves the Troyes-Lavau penitentiary center, in Aube. An ultramodern establishment that the minister came to inaugurate this Wednesday afternoon. The State has invested 91.5 million euros in this 30,000 m2 prison, which will accommodate 476 inmates by the end of the year. “It’s impressive,” breathes the Minister of Justice, grabbing a cigarette and his lighter. Here, each cell has a shower, which is far from being the case elsewhere. The former lawyer remembers “the time when we washed once a week in prison, in the collective showers. In terms of dignity, it was unacceptable.” It was also “the place, the moment, where the most danger crystallizes”, both for the prisoners and the guards.
“All this allows for more reintegration”
There are also, behind the high reinforced concrete walls, gymnasiums and sports fields, a library, a performance hall, teaching premises and production workshops for working. “All of this allows for more reintegration,” insists Éric Dupond-Moretti. These arrangements also “ensure improved working conditions” for the 330 prison administration staff who will be assigned there. He adopts the formula of Albert Camus, who said that a democracy “is also measured by the state of its prisons”. “And so it’s important that we make progress. »
By the end of the year, almost a third of the 15,000 additional prison places promised by the head of state will be operational. “We had planned with Éric Ciotti [le président des Républicains] to build more than the 15,000 places planned. I said I agreed, but that we needed to give us a hand. It turns out that sometimes things get stuck” with local elected officials. Particularly “in the Ile-de-France region”, chaired by Valérie Pécresse. Elected officials who are reluctant to install prisons on their territory fear “that this would attract insecurity”. “It’s the strict opposite,” replies the Minister of Justice. “They also say that it can devalue the cost of real estate. We have done studies on this, it is absolutely not true. »
“I did not become a minister to show off”
The mayor of Troyes, François Baroin, and that of Lavau, Jacques Gachowski, understood, he said, that there were above all “advantages”. “Businesses gain staff and their families as customers. Here, there are almost 400 people, plus their spouses and children. » From an architectural point of view, efforts are being made “so that these penitentiary establishments blend into the environment,” he observes. “When we look at the structures, they are aesthetically successful. »
Next Tuesday, Éric Dupond-Moretti will present the justice budget for 2024 to Parliament. “We have a trajectory, by 2027, which should take us to nearly 11 billion in budget. This will represent, since the election of the president in 2017, an increase of 60%, it is colossal,” insists the minister. This progression, as he often reminds us, is “historic”. “And it’s not a question of modesty or immodesty, it’s a reality,” he assures. I did not become a minister to show off. I have a mission letter from the President of the Republic and on this, we are on the same line. We must put an end to the vagaries of justice. »
“Ministers must lead by example”
We asked him about his relations with the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who has been making shocking statements for several weeks, regularly sparking controversy. “I will never air the disagreements we might have, I settle that with him,” he simply responds. Before adding: “I do not regret the time when the Interior and Justice were constantly opposed. It is essential to work together, and we are doing it. We have friendship and respect for each other that allows us to say things, and we don’t always agree. I have always told the police and magistrates unions that criticism of one another is harmful. Ministers must lead by example. »
What does he think of the turn the immigration bill is taking, carried by the Minister of the Interior, who claims to have “no taboos”? “It is an important text, which Gérald Darmanin is currently discussing, co-constructing with parliamentarians. We do not have a sloppy Parliament, the text will be enriched. Between what was proposed and the final version voted on, there are modifications suggested by parliamentarians, and that’s fine. »
“Rather calm” before his trial
In a few days, the Minister of Justice will be tried before the Court of Justice of the Republic. He is suspected of having used his position as minister to settle scores with magistrates with whom he had had trouble when he was a lawyer. Which he denies. “It has been three and a half years since I gave my explanations. You understand that I can’t wait to be able to explain myself,” he assures us. Before adding: “I won’t say anything else. And it’s not bragging to say that I finally want to explain myself, I’m rather calm. »
Our last interview, during a ministerial trip to Reims, ended by discussing Olympique de Marseille. This time, it’s about the Rugby World Cup, and the defeat of the French team in the quarter-final against the South Africans, 28 to 29, which he barely “digests”. “I saw that there is an organization [des superviseurs de World Rugby] which retains five faults committed by the referee, including the famous race [de Cheslin Kolbe] » which prevented Thomas Ramos from marking his transformation, he laments. “Life is nothing. »
Touched by “a papelard of the Team »
The procession stops at a rest area on the A5 motorway. Before giving our place to his advisor, the former criminal lawyer cannot help but tell this anecdote. “I had a lot of papers, portraits, in the press. But the one that touched me the most was a little papelard from the Team. » At the time, Éric Dupond-Moretti defended rugby player Marc Cécillon. In 2008, the former Blues third row was on appeal for having killed his wife by shooting her four times during an evening, during which he had drunk too much. “It’s a terrible story. He had taken twenty years at first instance. » His former teammates from the French team were to come and testify at the stand. What the lawyer objected to. “I wanted it to be the downfall of a man and not the trial of a rugby star. I have pleaded this matter to the fullest extent of the matter. And the Team wrote: “He knows nothing about rugby, he knows nothing about sport, but he knows men and knows how to talk about them.” It warmed my heart. » Marc Cécillon’s sentence will be reduced to 14 years’ imprisonment.