Elisabeth Borne assures that the Minister of Justice will leave the government if he is convicted

“This is the general rule that applies.” Elisabeth Borne assured, on BFMTV on Sunday October 8, that the Minister of Justice would leave the government if he was convicted. Eric Dupond-Moretti must be tried for illegal taking of interests from November 7. The Minister of Justice will appear before the Court of Justice of the Republic, the only body empowered to judge a serving minister.

Eric Dupond-Moretti is suspected of having used his position as minister to settle scores with magistrates with whom he had had disagreements when he was a lawyer. The minister is notably accused of having launched an administrative investigation against three magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), who had gone through his telephone records when he was a lawyer, in connection with the Bismuth affair.

If the former lawyer is convicted, he would not be the first minister of Emmanuel Macron’s mandate to be so. Former Minister for SMEs Alain Griset was sentenced on appeal in Paris in January 2023 to four months in prison for incomplete or false declaration of his financial situation after his appointment to the government in July 2020. He had submitted his resignation on the day of his conviction at first instance – six months suspended prison sentence -.