The rag is burning again between rebellious France and the government. Tuesday, December 12, LFI MP Mathilde Panot took legal action “on facts that could be compared to corruption”, concerning the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. He who had presented his resignation – immediately refused by Emmanuel Macron – after the failure of his Immigration bill in the Assembly, is now questioned in the way he tried to pass it.
Faced with these accusations which he describes as “false”, Gérald Darmanin has decided to “file a complaint for defamation and slanderous denunciation” concerning alleged bargaining” of MPs’ votes, the Interior Minister’s entourage announced on Tuesday. A look back at this affair in five acts, which begins with an inopportune phone call.
Act I: the phone call
Wednesday, December 6, the phone rings in the duty office of the socialist deputy for Eure, Philippe Brun. At the other end of the phone: the chief of staff of the Minister of the Interior. After a few seconds of confusion on the phone, the elected official “has the pleasure of learning that new numbers of law enforcement officers would be sent to Ardèche”, relates Release in an article published a few days later, Monday 11. The deputy quickly understood that the minister’s entourage was thinking of speaking to his namesake, the elected Republican… Fabrice Brun. According to Philipe Brun, the director of the cabinet announced that the request for a gendarmerie brigade that he had made for a commune in his constituency was accepted, adding: “you know what the minister expects of you…”
Act II: the dramatic twist at the Assembly
Monday, December 11, is a real twist in the Assembly. The motion for prior rejection, presented by the environmentalist group against Gérald Darmanin’s immigration bill – intended to “control immigration, improve integration” – was adopted thanks to an addition of votes, ranging from France Insoumise to the PS, until the National Rally. It will therefore not be examined in the hemicycle, and will go directly back to the Senate.
A few minutes before the vote, the Minister of the Interior, seeing the threat looming, denounced a “compromise” by the environmentalist group allied to the RN during this political coup. After having accepted his “failure”, Gérald Darmanin proposed his resignation at the beginning of the evening to the President of the Republic, who refused it. At the same time, Philippe Lebrun’s revelations were published in the press.
Act III: justice gets involved
The next day, Tuesday morning, the president of the LFI deputies announced that she had contacted the public prosecutor “on facts that could be compared to the corruption of elected officials by Minister Gérald Darmanin”. “Bargaining votes to avoid the rejection of its immigration law, against gendarmes, brigades of mobile gendarmes? These facts, if proven, are a serious attack on the democratic exercise!”, she affirmed in a tweet.
In her letter to the prosecutor, Mathilde Panot mentions an article from Paris Match, mentioning three LR deputies approached by the Ministry of the Interior: Jérôme Nury, Nicolas Forissier and Virginie Duby-Muller, were “approached and apparently convinced ” by Gérald Darmanin, since they “made a different choice” when voting on the motion to reject, she specifies. “Virginie Duby-Muller was absent, Jérôme Nury abstained and Nicolas Forissier was one of the two deputies in this group to have voted against.”
📝 We are contacting the Public Prosecutor about facts that could be compared to the corruption of elected officials by the Minister @GDarmanin
Bargain for votes to avoid the rejection of his immigration law, against gendarmes, mobile gendarme brigades?
These… pic.twitter.com/AYx9vxoG6b— Mathilde Panot (@MathildePanot) December 12, 2023
Act IV: the commission of inquiry
The same morning, during their weekly press briefing, the environmentalist deputies added a layer and asked for the creation of a commission of inquiry into suspicions of “blackmail” or “corruption” of deputies on the part of the Ministry of Defense. ‘Interior. “We discovered in the press a certain number of extremely disturbing things, in particular that it would have been promised, negotiated in exchange for votes of support for this text, gendarmerie barracks, police stations and what not. , then indicates MP Benjamin Lucas. He proposed to his “Nupes” colleagues to sign “a resolution requesting the establishment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry to shed light on what would be, if the facts were proven, an attempt at corruption within Parliament , at the very least blackmail.”
Act V: Darmanin’s complaint
Retaliation comes quickly. On Tuesday evening, the Minister of the Interior began drafting a complaint for “defamation and slanderous denunciation”. Questioned by AFP, Place Beauvau underlines that the minister’s office is “used to responding to requests from parliamentarians. As was the case for MP Fabrice Brun regarding his gendarmerie brigade”. But the project was “raised in July 2023 and formally validated in October 2023”, and “it was therefore not during the parliamentary debates on immigration that the decision was taken, but several months before”. If it is signed by Nupes, the commission of inquiry could be voted on in the Assembly in the coming days.