An appeal filed before the administrative court – Liberation

A medal on the chest that makes a stir. While Emmanuel Macron excluded, Thursday, April 24, to withdraw the Legion of Honor from Nicolas Sarkozy, judging that« It was very important that the presidents and the former presidents were respected », Several people today challenge this refusal to justice.

According to information from Worldhalf a dozen people, descendants of decorated, will file an appeal to the Paris administrative court this Tuesday, May 6. In this 13 -page text deposited by Lawyer and former environmental deputy Julien Bayou and consulted by the daily, the applicants ask the administrative judge to« Entrant » to the order of the Legion of Honor to note « The exclusion of law of Mr. Sarkozy ». They believe that « Remove the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit to the former President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy is not to lack respect for the function of president is to protect it. »

Because despite his final conviction to three years in prison for influence and corruption trafficking In December in the listening affair, Nicolas Sarkozy has been preserving since this distinction. « No decree of finding the exclusion of law of Mr. Sarkozy was published in the Official Journal », Julien Bayou castigate in the columns of World. And this despite the launch of the disciplinary procedure by General Lecointre, a great chancellor of the Legion of Honor on March 4.

However, the Code of the Legion of Honor is clear: if a person is found guilty of a crime or sentenced to a sentence greater than or equal to one year in prison, the radiation is automatic and must be pronounced by presidential decree. For Julien Bayou, In addition grandson of Raoul Bayou, former deputy of Hérault and officer of the Legion of Honor, this decision is a sprain in the code.

Among the applicants represented by the lawyer, Eric Bazin, former editor-in-chief of the Gamma agency and grandson of Henri Hossard, knight of the Legion of Honor, said to himself « unworthy » by this ex-president. He judges this decision « deplorable » and wants to decline the distinction of Sarkozy a « Fight for honor ».

Another applicant, Agnès Bayou, sister of the former environmental deputy, estimates, with the World that the refusal to withdraw this medal from Nicolas Sarkozy « Is a slap for all decorated ».

In his appeal, Me Bayou specifies that since a February reform of the order of the Legion of Honor, « It is the great chancellor who is competent to see the exclusion of law of the order », That is to say General Lecointre. Emmanuel Macron, who is him a great master of order, would have expressed himself « On a material that does not fall under its field of competence ».