In Italy, they are nicknamed “pentiti”. Since the 1980s, Italian law has provided that members of a criminal organization can benefit from a reduced sentence, state protection and possible financial support if they agree to deliver to justice reliable, new, complete and decisive information allowing them to dismantle their networks. This status, officially recognized under the name of “collaborator of justice” among our transalpine neighbors, also exists in France. But by the own admission of the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, in an interview given to La Tribune Sunday on April 27, this legislation “is far too restrictive, and therefore not very effective” in our territory. Faced with the scale of drug trafficking in France, the Minister of Justice indicated that he wanted to rework this statute, drawing inspiration in particular from the Italian model.
In the future, a judge could thus grant a special status to “repentants” who agree to collaborate with justice, allowing them in particular to benefit from a reduced sentence and “an official and definitive change of civil status”. A “totally new” device, according to the minister, also recommended by the report of the senatorial commission of inquiry made public on May 14, which calls for a “global overhaul” of the legislation already in force, extending it for example to perpetrators of “blood crimes” – which was not the case until now. But Clotilde Champeyrache, economist specializing in mafias at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, warns: according to her, France must not “overvalue” this system, which, to work, must be accompanied by significant financial and human investments. “We will have to succeed in arresting large-scale criminals, and each collaborative relationship will have to be unique, carried out over a long period of time, with a lot of resources,” believes the author of Mafia geopolitics (ed. The Blue Rider, 2022). Interview.
The Express. Eric Dupond-Moretti indicated that he wanted to draw inspiration largely from the status of Italian “collaborator of justice”. How does it work, and what are its limits?
Clotilde Champeyrache: This statute was initially created to dismantle Italian terrorist organizations, during what was called “the years of lead”. It was then specifically used for organized crime, particularly mafia crime, in the 1990s. The idea was to offer a “deal” to mafiosi, by offering them to reveal information in exchange for a reduction in sentence and ‘a protection. This system worked very well initially, because certain justice collaborators were very important network heads, whose information made it possible to carry out large-scale anti-mafia operations.
But there were very quickly limits to this system: Italian justice was overwhelmed by the number of collaborators resulting from mafia wars in particular, and by the financial cost generated by the management of these collaborators. In 2001, Italy therefore reformed this status by making it more complex. Employees are now required to disclose all their information within 180 days maximum, and the information must be deemed useful, new and reliable. If this is the case, he can then, just like members of his family, obtain a new identity, reduction of sentence – and not removal of sentence -, and financial support allowing social reintegration, for approximately six years.
In Italy, what are the results of this system?
The characteristic of the mafia and organized crime networks is precisely the discretion induced by the weight of silence, the famous omerta. These are extremely closed and opaque structures, about which it is very difficult to obtain reliable information. The status of collaborator of justice has made it possible to lift the veil on these organizations, to understand them. It’s an unimaginable resource, but it only works if you understand the personality of these employees. It is essential to work on a case by case basis: some will speak out because they reject the criminal organization as it has become, others to bring down the competition, take revenge, manipulate trials or pollute media attention. … We must therefore be very careful about the value we give to this word.
There is also a social counterpart to this particular status. When Giovanni Brusca, who actively participated in the assassination of Judge Falcone in Italy, benefited from a reduced sentence after collaborating with the justice system, it caused a great stir in the country. Giovanni Falcone’s sister then spoke, and was very dignified in explaining that this was the counterpart of the system that her brother had wanted.
Is France ready, in your opinion, to implement a repentant status modeled on the Italian model?
The problem in France is that we overvalue the system, because we have too economical a vision of things. We think that this simple status will encourage network members and possible witnesses to speak, but it is much more complicated than that. First of all, we must remember that symbolically, speaking is very heavy for criminals and those around them. The collaboration relationship with the justice system must therefore be unique, carried out over the long term, with a lot of human resources, to establish a strong bond of trust. It is not infinitely reproducible, they are singular trajectories. Then, the Italians explain that we must not underestimate the notion of power, which is fundamental but which we do not yet understand in France in its entirety. The conditioning of a territory by drug trafficking networks, through their capacity to infiltrate the legal economic sphere, the private sphere and the political sphere, for example, must be better taken into account.
That’s to say ?
Criminals can today create or buy companies with legal activity, which are used for money laundering, but also for the control of a territory, the population, and local authorities. They thus create jobs, distribute income, buy a certain social legitimacy, create related allegiances… Once this criminal social legitimacy has been acquired, the next step is the control of political votes: giving voting instructions for the elections. elections, for example. This is how we must reason, taking organized crime in its entirety.
To make justice collaborators speak, we will have to agree to recognize this power to condition territories, with a real institutional dimension, with organizations that manage to impose silence through numerous levers. We must understand that if they speak out, victims of trafficking, witnesses and members of organizations will have a lot to lose, and not only in financial terms.
In such a context, to whom should this repentant status be offered?
Here again, this is a problem in France. For this to work, we must still succeed in arresting large-scale criminals, and those we arrest at the moment are not members of the “high spectrum” of the networks. The “choufs”, the lookouts, the dealers, the little hands will not necessarily be useful. To make the biggest fish talk, we need to work more on criminal intelligence. And for this, stop perceiving drug trafficking through the sole prism of the drug market, without analyzing the poly-activity of these networks on pimping, arms trafficking, money laundering… We have no vision of together in France, and it is very serious. The prison van attacked on May 14, which caused the death of two guards, was an armed attack, with weapons of war, at a specific time and place. How could we have ended up with these weapons on the territory, what are the links between the arms and drug networks, with what money was all this financed, by what information networks? This will have to be taken into account when working with justice collaborators, to identify them properly and to succeed in linking these different layers of organized crime.
The Minister of Justice specified that this new status will be financed in particular by the confiscation of criminal assets. What do you think ?
This requires in-depth heritage investigations, which is not done enough in France currently. It’s a bit like the snake biting its tail: if we manage to stop the high end of the spectrum, we can start a virtuous circle, by seizing goods in the ports for example. But on the ground, there is still a lack of human and financial resources, particularly within the judicial police, to carry out these investigations. We must train investigators in these heritage investigations, and above all give them the time to do this work – even if it takes months, even years.
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