The Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, at the Sorbonne, in Paris, June 23, 2023. FRANCK FIFE / AFP
After a defamation complaint by the former French football boss Noël Le Graët, the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, is the subject of a judicial investigation opened by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), learned the Agence France-Presse (AFP) Friday, June 30, from a judicial source.
The commission of instruction of the CJR, the only jurisdiction empowered to judge ministers in the exercise of their functions, has been seized since June 21 of the procedure triggered by Mr. Le Graët following the minister’s remarks in February on his management of the French Football Federation (FFF). Asked by AFP, Thierry Marembert, lawyer for Mr. Le Graët, did not wish to comment.
Noël Le Graët resigned in February with a bang from the FFF, which he had led since 2011, after the publication of an audit report by the general inspectorate for education, sport and research, overwhelming him on his management, and while he was the subject of accusations of sexual harassment. A few hours after her departure, her lawyer had announced a complaint, claiming that Ms. Oudéa-Castéra had “save” on this report and noted a difference between the summary of the document, published on February 15 and which mentioned the sending by Mr Le Graët of “SMS ambiguous for some and clearly sexual in nature for others”and its entirety.
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“ambiguous wordings”
The report was never made public. According to an extract, consulted at the time by AFP, the inspection mission had observed “a small number of writings (SMS among others) produced by Mr. Le Graët using ambiguous formulations that can receive different interpretations and a vocabulary that does not include any term of a sexual nature”.
The press law procedure makes it almost automatic, after a defamation complaint, the referral to an investigating judge and the indictment of the author of the remarks, the substantive debate taking place at the hearing. . However, the case law is different before the CJR. In 2014, its requests committee had thus closed a complaint for defamation by the controversial polemicist Dieudonné against Manuel Valls, then Minister of the Interior, considering from the outset that the offense of defamation was not sufficiently characterized.
Mr. Le Graët is the subject of a preliminary investigation for moral and sexual harassment opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office. The former director general of the FFF Florence Hardouin, heard in April in this investigation, filed a complaint against him. In addition to Ms. Oudéa-Castera, the Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti, is the subject of proceedings at the CJR, which issued an order in October referring him to trial which he disputes.
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