The investigation targeted former Ministers of Health Agnès Buzyn and Olivier Véran, as well as former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. None of the three former ministers is indicted.
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A little over a month ago, on November 28, the three judges of the investigating commission of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), officially closed the investigations into the management of the Covid pandemic -19 in France, franceinfo learned from a source close to the case. The CJR is the only body empowered to judge ministers for acts committed during their mandate.
In March 2020, just a few days after the start of confinement, the first complaints were filed against the Prime Minister at the time, Edouard Philippe, and two Ministers of Health, Agnès Buzyn and her successor Olivier Véran.
The Court of Justice of the Republic had been tasked with investigating the possible criminal responsibility of these three members of the government in the management and spread of Covid-19, as well as its toll of several tens of thousands of deaths: lack of masks, delay before activating the crisis center or even maintaining the municipal elections of May 2020, the criticisms addressed to the members of the government of the time were numerous.
The former Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn, who left the government at the very beginning of the health crisis to run in the Parisian municipal election, was for a time prosecuted. At the start of 2020, she notably declared from the Elysée that “the risks of the coronavirus spreading among the population (were) very low.” She was indicted for “endangering the lives of others” in September 2021, before this indictment was canceled by the Court of Cassation at the beginning of 2023. The Court of Cassation then found that“none of the texts (…) to indict the former Minister of Health provides for any particular obligation of caution or security”.
She was finally placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness for this same leader as well as for “voluntary abstention from fighting a disaster”, just like Edouard Philippe and Olivier Véran. The investigation is therefore now closed, without any indictment, which opens the way to a very probable dismissal of the case in the coming months.