Dissatisfied with the Justice budget, Migaud threatens Barnier to resign

The tensions around the 2025 budget – unveiled last Thursday by the Prime Minister – are even present in Michel Barnier’s team. And on this issue, Didier Migaud is particularly angry against the envelope envisaged for his ministry.

The Minister of Justice thus warned on Monday that he would not remain in the government if the justice budget was not improved, after a cut of nearly 500 million euros in the finance bill.

An amendment to resolve the standoff

“If we stick to the ceiling letter, yes, I don’t see what I would still do in government,” replied the Minister of Justice on RTL, when asked if he was making this question a “red line.” “. “But I trust the Prime Minister, who gave me assurances,” he added.

“I am mobilized so that upward adjustments can be proposed,” insisted the Minister of Justice, adding that Michel Barnier indicated that an amendment would be “tabled by the government as part of the parliamentary discussion to raise a certain number of budgets”. The nearly 500 million euros less in the justice budget will however “perhaps not” be recovered in “totality”, warned Didier Migaud.

The amount of the justice budget, as made public on Thursday, stands at 10.24 billion euros for 2025, or nearly 500 million euros less than what was initially planned by the law on programming of justice, adopted in October 2023. This law, promoted by the former Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, promised a Justice budget of nearly 11 billion euros in 2027 and the hiring of 10,000 in five years people, including 1,500 magistrates and 1,800 clerks.

The USM castigates “bloodless justice”

Didier Migaud reaffirmed his ambition regarding hiring, insisting on his desire “to obtain the necessary credits so that commitments are respected”, in order to fight against the “congestion” of justice services. According to him, France is “very behind many other countries that are comparable to us” in particular in terms of “consideration” for its justice.

The Union of Magistrates (USM) for its part recalled having alerted, during its congress in Toulouse on Friday and Saturday, about “the imperative need to respect the commitments of the orientation and programming law for justice ( …) in order to hope to repair a bloodless justice system after 30 years of budgetary abandonment.” “If the minister seems convinced, the Matignon arbitrations must intervene quickly and concretize this desire to support our justice,” added the main union of French magistrates.