Can a simple employee defend the general interest? This is the question posed by the story of Maureen Kearney, worthy of a spy novel, told in The Syndicalistby Caroline Michel-Aguirre (Stock, 2019) and performed by Isabelle Huppert, in the film by Jean-Paul Salomé which will be released in theaters this Wednesday 1er March. The ex-secretary of the European group committee of Areva is the whistleblower who had denounced a contract providing for a massive transfer of technologies to China.
” A whistleblower is a natural person who reports or discloses, without direct financial compensation and in good faith, information relating to a crime, misdemeanor, threat or harm to the public interest, a violation or an attempt to conceal a violation an international commitment regularly ratified or approved by France, a unilateral act of an international organization taken on the basis of such a commitment, European Union law, law or regulation.said Waserman’s Law, adopted in 2022 to strengthen their protection. But does he have any real leeway?
Listening to the testimonies of those who disclosed the scandals of tax evasion at UBS, Dépakine at Sanofi or that of Areva, the pressures are considerable to reduce their power to act. “Several people had tried to arrest me in my role, until a few days before the aggression. I intended to file a complaint for moral harassment, but I did not have time.testifies Maureen Kearney.
In 2012, she was savagely attacked in her apartment, a few days after having voted for the referral to justice of its CEO, Luc Oursel, for non-consultation of the group committee on Areva’s strategy. At the time, whistleblowers had no protection. She tells : “I was in my bathroom, someone came in, put a hood over my head, tied me up, pulled my pantyhose down and started cutting my stomach. At that moment, I lost consciousness. Afterwards, he raped me, telling me that it was the last warning. »
She obviously filed a rape complaint. Result: classification without follow-up. “I was protected for three weeks by gendarmes at home. Then I was considered crazy. » Indictment for “imaginary crime”, Maureen Kearney will finally be cleared on appeal. Warnings, threats, then indictments or even assaults continue to be the modus vivendi suffered by whistleblowers in 2023, as in 2012.
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