Agnès Buzyn, accused of her alleged mismanagement of the health crisis, assures that she warned the Executive in vain since the start of the pandemic
The former French Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, assures that, since the beginning of the pandemic, she warned, in vain, the President, Emmanuel Macron, and the then Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe, about the potential danger to health that could represent the Covid-19, but that they ignored their multiple warnings.
Buzyn, who was Minister of Health between May 2017 and February 2020, is the only political leader who has so far been charged with “endangering the lives of others” by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) for her alleged mismanagement of the health crisis. “We are the only country in the world that has charged ministers for their management of a global pandemic,” laments Buzyn, who has compiled her warnings to the Executive in a newspaper and has presented her dossier to the court as evidence.
Buzyn, a doctor by profession specializing in hematology, maintains that on January 11, 2020, he warned Macron and Philippe for the first time of what was happening in China. Despite her insistence, she did not get the president to receive her at the Elysée Palace. On February 8, she finally managed to talk to him on the phone. “She had the impression of not being heard,” explains Buzyn in an interview in the newspaper ‘Le Monde’, after two years of media silence. “She had the impression of having a sleeping army before me and I couldn’t wake them up,” she tells her former minister.
In February 2020, Buzyn was forced to leave the Ministry of Health to stand as a candidate for Mayor of Paris, replacing Benjamin Griveaux. The official candidate of Macron’s party resigned after a sexual video of him came to light.
“They said it was just a little flu”
«They made me pass for an idiot who had not seen anything, when it was the opposite. Not only had she seen it, but I noticed it. I was by far the most alert, but no one cared. People told me that this virus was a little flu and that I was losing my nerve, “recalls the former minister, who assures that she advised against holding the municipal elections in March 2020, but that the Government ignored her and held the elections .
Unlike Buzyn, Philippe, who was prime minister between May 2017 and July 2020, has not been charged by the CJR. The judges have granted Philippe, who is now mayor of Le Havre, the status of “assisted witness”. They do not formally charge him with any crime, as they have not found enough evidence against him, but they leave the door open to a subsequent accusation if they get it. Macron will not be tried by the Court of Justice of the Republic for the management of the pandemic, since the president enjoys immunity for the entire duration of his mandate.
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