“Yawning flaws in the French health system, on which the erratic management of Covid-19 has shed a harsh light”. This is what two journalists from say the journalists from MondeGérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme, in a book-investigation published this Wednesday, “The judges and the assassin” (published by Flammarion). They look behind the scenes of the judicial investigation by the Court of Justice of the Republic into the government’s management of the Covid-19 epidemic.
Former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, former Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn and his successor Olivier Véran were the subject of this judicial investigation opened in July 2020, in particular for endangering the lives of others. Placed under the more favorable status of assisted witness, the three political leaders should benefit from a dismissal of the case.
“The French health system, a Kafkaesque universe”
But the four years of investigation have fleshed out a file of tens of thousands of pages which could feed into the investigation opened in parallel by the Public Health Unit of the Paris judicial court, where no one has been indicted at this stage according to a source close to the case. Asked about the progress of this judicial information, the prosecution simply indicated that the investigations against in progress “.
According to the two journalists, “The State made a mistake, through incompetence and/or unpreparedness”, “by not taking the virus seriously enough quickly”, by “knowingly leaving health response tools” such as Public Health France “in financial discomfort”, “by neglecting the stock of masks” or even by “misleading the French about wearing a mask”. And also a “pile of structures” which have made the health system a “Kafkaesque universe”, according to the authors, hindering the effectiveness of the response.
“We see, upon reading the documents, that not only was it predictable, but it was planned,” underline the two journalists on France Inter. “Reports said that an impending health crisis was inevitable and that there was a way to be prepared, at least in the first weeks. All these recommendations remained a dead letter, dozens and dozens of reports from the highest authorities which remained unanswered.”
Our file on Covid-19
Gérard Davet is a journalist at Monde and Fabrice Lhomme, senior reporter in the same newspaper. In the past, they have notably investigated François Fillon and Nicolas Sarkozy.