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Why France’s new Interior Minister faces protests everywhere he goes

Gerald Darmanin has faced protests at all of his public appearances to date as France's interior minister as the country questions whether someone under investigation for rape allegations can and should be its "top cop."

Published: 22 July 2020 16:45 CEST

Why France's new Interior Minister faces protests everywhere he goes

The newly apointed interior minister Gerald Darmanin. Photo: AFP

The 37-year-old's appointment on July 6th drew immediate outrage that has showed no signs of abating – women's rights campaigners have picketed every one of Darmanin's public appearances to date.

He is accused of raping a woman in 2009 after she sought his help to have a criminal record expunged while he was a legal affairs adviser with the UMP, the ancestor of France's main right-wing party, the Republicans.

Darmanin maintains they had consensual sex.

The case has been thrown out multiple times, but appeals judges in Paris last month ordered a new investigation after the woman approached France's highest court.

The uproar over Darmanin's promotion to a key cabinet position just weeks after that ruling seems to have taken the government and President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party by surprise.

Their defence of Darmanin has focused on the presumption of innocence, even as they appear to have exonerated him despite an ongoing inquiry.

Macron explained on French television that he had a “relationship of trust, man-to-man” with Darmanin, a phrase many criticised for being tone deaf.

A member of Macron's team defended the appointment by telling AFP the criminal case was evolving “in the right direction” and “presented no obstacle” to Darmanin's elevation.

Darmanin himself has complained of a “manhunt” and told a regional newspaper this week it was hard for a falsely accused person to explain to their parents “what happened because, it's true, I lived a young man's life.”

The woman also accuses Darmanin of sexual harassment and abuse of power, while he has filed a libel complaint against her in return.

Even if he is ultimately cleared, critics say the mere hint of impropriety makes Darmanin unsuitable for the interior ministry job, especially as Macron had promised a “moralisation of public life” on his watch.

“It is not certain that we are properly evaluating the damage that this case is causing,” Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet, an analyst at the Sciences Po university in Paris, said of the political support being drummed up for Darmanin at a time of widespread mistrust in government.

A cabinet minister who asked for anonymity told AFP: “What is annoying is that this issue will ripple out.”

In a press interview, Darmanin said he was “completely at ease,” but on Tuesday his lawyers warned that he reserved the right to sue over “any defamatory remarks that stain his honour and esteem.”

Even within his own ministry, Darmanin's appointment has raised eyebrows – if questioned in the probe, it would be by police officers of whom he is now the boss.

And his fellow cabinet members are finding themselves in difficult positions.

Elisabeth Moreno, the new minister for gender equality, said after a “woman-to-man” conversation with Darmanin that he deserved the benefit of the doubt, “but if he is found guilty, we will talk again.”

One minister told AFP that “Legally speaking, I think the case falters. But then follows the moral question: Has Darmanin always behaved well towards women?”

The allegations are not the first against Darmanin – a woman accused him of using his position as mayor of the northern city of Tourcoing to seek sexual favours from 2014 to 2017, though prosecutors dismissed the case.

Women's rights activists including Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi wrote in Le Monde that Macron's cabinet shuffle which promoted Darmanin marked an “anti-feminist political shift.”

Women's groups gathering under slogans such as: “The culture of rape on the move” – a play on Macron's Republic on the Move party – have staged protests in Paris and the rest of France, even in Brussels, since Darmanin's appointment.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.