INFO EUROPE 1 – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs files a complaint against Juan Branco


Louis de Raguenel and Mayalene Tremolet
modified to

5:46 p.m., July 12, 2023

A new legal tussle? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has decided to file a complaint against the lawyer Juan Branco. Quick reminder of the facts: following the repression of the demonstrations against the imprisonment of the Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko on June 1, his lawyer, Juan Branco, announced that he was filing a complaint for crimes against humanity. During a press conference on June 22, the lawyer specifically accuses two French aid workers, citing them by name, before communicating the personal data of one of them, such as his telephone number or his registration number. Along with his complaint, Juan Branco also cited the names of five other agents.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls for the lawyer to be called to order

In two tweets published a few days before the conference, on June 11 and 13, the lawyer had already arbitrarily denounced the involvement of these two French aid workers in the violence in Senegal, which he described as crimes against humanity. He had therefore called for their identities to be revealed. In the second tweet, Juan Branco announced that he had identified all the French soldiers integrated into the command of the Senegalese gendarmerie, underlining an alleged role of France in the repression of violence.

It is for these remarks that the Quai d’Orsay has stepped up to the plate. According to information from Europe 1, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs requests that the lawyer be called to order. The ministry declared to file a complaint in application of article 40 (editor’s note: the article according to which any authority or civil servant is obliged to report a crime or an offense of which he has knowledge).

“France is filing a complaint against me. My country. My people. My homeland. Why? For having revealed the commission of crimes against humanity”, defended himself in a tweet Juan Branco following the complaint from the ministry. “The Quai d’Orsay has never denounced them. We will not give in to any intimidation. So that elsewhere, we can continue to say to ourselves: yes, there are still in France people who have courage, values , a relationship to honour, integrity and dignity, so that our country cannot be humiliated and once again belittled because certain beings have decided to defile it.

Already at the heart of several controversies

The lawyer and political activist, classified on the far left and indicted for rape in 2021, has already been at the heart of several controversies: he was notably accused of having participated in the dissemination of the video of Benjamin Griveaux to cause his fall as a lawyer for Piotr Pavlenski. He was also accused of an attempt to defend Salah Abdeslam, after a letter dated October 2016, in which he suggested that he “dismiss his counsel”, and gave him several recommendations for his defense.

A crime of endangering the person

As the situation in Senegal remains extremely tense, the two French agents, whose identity is now known, are no longer safe and are directly exposed to any form of reprisal. The facts of denunciation of Juan Branco can characterize an offense of endangering the person provided for by article 223-1-1 of the Penal Code which was created after the Paty affair.

The text was adopted in the law of August 24, 2021 “consolidating respect for the principles of the Republic”. It dictates that “the act of revealing, disseminating or transmitting, by any means whatsoever, information relating to the private, family or professional life of a person, making it possible to identify or locate him, for the purposes exposing him or his family members to a direct risk of harm to person or property that the author could not ignore is punished by three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros”.





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