Presidential 2027 and "political justice" : the national financial prosecutor’s office wants to try to avoid "hit

“When facts are brought to our attention, we are required to carry out a certain number of checks before opening investigations,” assures the financial prosecutor, who wants to protect himself from any exploitation.

Regularly accused of being the instrument of “political justice” by certain elected officials, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office, through the voice of the Prosecutor of the Financial Republic, Pascal Prache, says it is committed to ensuring that “investigations go quickly enough so as not to directly impact the electoral calendar, as much as possible”.

“The subject is that of the application of the law

but also trying to ensure that the investigations go quickly enough so as not to directly impact the electoral calendar, as much as possible”, explained the head of the national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF) Tuesday on

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et

RMC

. The PNF, created in 2013, is regularly accused by certain elected officials of fueling, through the investigations it initiates,

a “political” justice weighing on the electoral deadlines

. What the financial magistrates are defending.

The goal is to “try, when we have the possibility, particularly in terms of controlling investigation deadlines, that

the judicial calendar impacts the electoral calendar as little as possible

“, underlined the financial prosecutor.

And to add: “We do not always have total control because there are the investigation services, there is the positioning of the different actors (investigations, editor’s note) which mean that this (judicial, editor’s note) calendar can evolve constantly.”

“Instrumentalization”

Recently, the PNF returned to the news, asking that an investigating judge take charge of the investigation targeting in particular Édouard Philippe, presidential candidate in 2027, for alleged acts of embezzlement of public funds, moral harassment or even taking illegal interest within the metropolitan community of Le Havre, the city of which he is mayor.

Following a complaint filed at the end of 2023, “a preliminary investigation was carried out” by the PNF, recalled Pascal Prache, recalling that a “complaint with the constitution of a civil party” was then filed by the whistleblower: ” from that moment on,

the opening of judicial information is automatic.

“We are also confronted in the pre-election period, potentially, with attempts to exploit the judicial authority”, also estimated Pascal Prache.

“It is imperative that we be very attentive,” he insisted. “When facts are brought to our attention, we are required to carry out a certain number of checks before opening investigations. And it is not because we open an investigation that, mechanically, there will be a prosecution.”