“How can we force someone to take their medication?” asks Eric Dupond-Moretti

The Minister of Justice, acquitted on November 29 by the Court of Justice of the Republic, spoke at length about the knife attack which left one dead and two injured in Paris on Saturday. Is this attack the result of a failure of justice? “The only person responsible for this heinous terrorist act is its author, let’s not reverse things,” said Eric Dupond-Moretti, who recalled that “43 attacks were foiled” over the last five years. “The difficulty here is the therapeutic injunction. How can we, Mr. Sotto, force someone to take their medication? That’s what we’re thinking about!” the minister defended himself.

The terrorist threat is “thousands of files in the courts”, said the Minister of Justice. He recalled the measures taken since the election of Emmanuel Macron: “The creation of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office, the considerable strengthening of intelligence in human terms, in terms of means, penitentiary intelligence which has also been put in place, we have set up radicality assessment units, taking charge of radicality.”

Prisoners “double monitored” on their release

He also announced the release in 2024 of 36 terrorism convicts who have served their sentences. “They will all be followed and doubly followed by both the intelligence services (…) and the judicial authority”, wanted to reassure the minister. He also supported Gérald Darmanin’s immigration law, welcoming a “balance text” between severity and openness to “those that our economy has needed for years, who have integrated, who speak our language”.

Definitively acquitted after the prosecution said it would not appeal to the Court of Cassation, the Minister of Justice affirms that he “left covered in mud” for three years to spare his profession and his ministry. Should the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), whose functioning is at the heart of the debates, be abolished? “The question has been asked for decades. Those who want to remove it are those who do not accept the decision that was rendered”remaining vague on the subject.