Immediate appearance, sanction of parents, derogations from the minority excuse: the National Assembly will examine from this Wednesday, February 12, a risky text by Gabriel Attal aimed at hardening the justice of the minors, supported by the government but hated by the left .
This bill aimed at “restoring the authority” of justice towards “minors delinquent” and “their parents” takes up a series of measures announced in the spring by Gabriel Attal, then Prime Minister. The text is intended to be a response to the urban violence of the summer of 2023 – after the death of the young Nahel, killed by a police officer in Nanterre – according to the former head of the government who, after having become deputy, decided to wear it in The hemicycle.
“I propose that we are firmer in the criminal response to a certain number of acts of delinquency, to crimes, to crimes that come from minors,” summed Gabriel Attal on Wednesday morning on RTL. He benefits from the support of the coalition of François Bayrou, who demonstrated his support for the text in the wake of the murder of Elias – a 14 -year -old teenager who was fatally stabbed in Paris for his mobile phone on January 24.
The left wind standing, the RN “rather favorable”
But its adoption is far from being assured. The left is a wind standing against this text “directly inspired by the ideas of the extreme right”, in the words of the socialist deputy Hervé Saulignac who will defend in the name of his group a preliminary motion.
During the examination in committee at the end of November, the left managed to distort the text, in the absence of a large number of deputies from the center, the right and the extreme right. Gabriel Attal has filed amendments to restore all the measures deleted, starting with the creation of an immediate appearance procedure for minors aged 16 for serious facts. He also intends to “reverse things” on “the excuse of minority” which helps to alleviate judicial sentences, so that it is no longer automatic from 16 years old, for particularly serious facts “. The text, whose examination will start at 9:30 p.m. and is expected to continue on Thursday morning, also plans to tighten sanctions towards parents of delinquent minors.
An orientation that is suitable for the national gathering. “We are rather favorable to all this,” admitted his vice-president Sébastien Chenu on TF1, judging that the text was going “in the right direction”, even if it is “still perhaps not enough”.
The central block is however shared: if some members of the right wing are delighted with “strong and radical proposals”, others do not hide their discomfort. Like the macronist deputy Ludovic Mendes, who deplores that the text is “not complete” and “deals with only part of the problem”, in the absence in particular of measures to “protect” minors from the exploitation of adults, For example. An elected official fears “that he only passes with the support of the extreme right”, and another MP even thinks that he “is unlikely to be adopted.
A test for Gabriel Attal
More broadly, “in the majority, there is not an overflowing enthusiasm”, confides to AFP an LR deputy, disappointed by “a badly put together text” and who “misses the objective” while his camp “wants a strong signal” on this subject of minors’ delinquency. Voices, however, rise to the right to beat the recall, like the president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse: “we have to vote the ATAL bill”, “it is important” , she said on France 2.
The file also has the value of a test for the former Prime Minister, in the hollow of the wave after setbacks wiped by his Renaissance party during recent elections, and numerous criticisms on his method used as head of the group. Several elected macronists interviewed by AFP criticize him for not having succeeded in instilling the “dynamism” necessary to “mobilize” the troops in recent months.
Apart from the hemicycle, in the judicial world, the text causes shields. In a column published by the Mediapart club, more than a dozen lawyers, magistracy, and judicial protection, call for rallies on Wednesday against this bill and “the instrumentalization of criminal justice Minors for security purposes “.