Pallade Veneta - French court dismisses government Covid response probe

The Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) closed the probe five years after it began in July 2020 over complaints that the government mismanaged its reaction to the virus's spread, including a lack of protective gear and unclear guidance over mask wearing.

Then premier Philippe, ex-health minister Agnes Buzyn and her successor Olivier Veran were named as assisted witnesses -- a status in the French legal system that falls between that of a witness and a formal suspect.

"The investigating committee of the Court of Justice of the Republic has decided to dismiss the case," prosecutor general Remy Heitz said on Monday, without offering details.

The public prosecutor in May requested the case be dismissed -- a move that effectively ruled out a trial.

The CJR is the only court authorised to prosecute and try former and current government members for alleged crimes and offences committed in exercising their official duties.

Its investigation found the government had taken several measures to combat the pandemic, Heitz said in May.

The prosecutor's request -- seen by AFP -- argued that while the measures taken to combat the spread of Covid-19 were insufficient, neither Philippe nor Veran deliberately refused to respond to the disaster.

"Each, at their own level, fought the epidemic from the moment it emerged in France," the request said.

Buzyn had been sharply criticised for leaving her post at the start of the health crisis to run for mayor of Paris.

But she actually left on February 16, 2020 -- a few days before an official disaster was declared in France with the first death of a Covid-19 patient recorded on February 25, the prosecutor general's office added.

Buzyn had also been under investigation for endangering the lives of others, but France's Court of Cassation dropped that charge in January 2023.

Philippe, a popular premier from 2017 to July 2020, is now mayor of the northern city of Le Havre and leads a right-centre party allied with, but not part of, Macron's centrist faction.

He is the only leading contender to firmly have declared his intention to stand in the 2027 presidential election.

According to France's public health agency, around 168,000 people died from Covid-19 between February 2020 and September 2023, when the World Health Organization declared the global health emergency over.

C.Grillo--PV