Court clears former French PM and health ministers of Covid-19 mismanagement

PARIS — Three top French government officials who oversaw the immediate response to the Covid-19 pandemic were cleared of allegations that they mismanaged the crisis, one of the trio said Monday.

Édouard Philippe — who served as prime minister until June 2020 — and former health ministers Agnès Buzyn and Olivier Véran were the subject of a four-year-long probe investigating whether they “failed to respond to a disaster." Véran stepped in as health minister in February 2020 to replace Buzyn, who had resigned to run for mayor of Paris.

Véran, who has since left government and returned to practicing medicine, confirmed in a post on X that the Court of Justice of the Republic, the only court which can prosecute government ministers for crimes committed in their official duties, had rendered a decision.

“After years of proceedings, investigations, summonses, and public accusations, justice has spoken," Véran said. "Managing the unpredictable means, in uncertainty, doing our best. We acted with sincerity and responsibility. We committed no fault, no intentional wrongdoing."

The court did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

The judicial inquiry was launched after hundreds of complaints in the early stages of the pandemic were leveled against the three officials, including some lodged by organizations representing medical professionals and the families of France's first Covid fatalities.

The complaints targeted a series of missteps in the early days of the pandemic, including the lack of reserves of masks and respirators and the decision to hold the first round of municipal elections across the country on March 15, 2020, just days before a nationwide lockdown was announced.

The court ruled in 2020 that nine of the claims were valid and opened the investigation.