Éric Dupond-Moretti (born 20 April 1961) is a French-Italian lawyer and politician who was appointed

Minister of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

in 2020 by

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...

. As a criminal defence lawyer he is renowned for his record number of acquittals which earned him the nickname "Acquitator", some of the controversial figures he defended, as well as his outspoken personality. On 6 July 2020, Dupond-Moretti took office as Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals in the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Jean Castex Jean Castex (; born 25 June 1965) is a French politician who was the country's Prime Minister from 3 July 2020 to 16 May 2022. He was a member of The Republicans (LR) until 2020, when he joined La République En Marche! (LREM). Castex served f ...

. His appointment came as a surprise to many political commentators. Dupond-Moretti has overseen a sharp increase in the budget devoted to the judiciary system following reports of lengthy procedures. He also successfully defended a bill in front of the

French Parliament The French Parliament (french: Parlement français) is the bicameral legislature of the French Republic, consisting of the Senate () and the National Assembly (). Each assembly conducts legislative sessions at separate locations in Paris: ...

in order to strengthen the severity of the sentencing process, stating the judiciary response to minor offenses was "too weak to be effective".

Early life

Dupond-Moretti is the only son of Jean-Pierre Dupond, a metal worker from

Avesnois The arrondissement of Avesnes-sur-Helpe is an arrondissement of France in the Nord department in the Hauts-de-France region. It has 151 communes. Its population is 230,372 (2016), and its area is . Composition The communes of the arrondissement ...

and Elena Moretti, a housekeeper from Italy. His paternal grandparents, Achille and Louise, were also workers. Fatherless at the age of four, his mother raised him alone. Like many famous fatherless criminal lawyers in France, most notably

Robert Badinter Robert Badinter (; born 30 March 1928) is a French lawyer, politician and author who enacted the abolition of the death penalty in France in 1981, while serving as Minister of Justice under François Mitterrand. He has also served in high-lev ...

, his childhood gave him a sense of injustice. Dupond-Moretti attended

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

at the Catholic Lycée Notre-Dame in

Valenciennes Valenciennes (, also , , ; nl, label=also Dutch, Valencijn; pcd, Valincyinnes or ; la, Valentianae) is a commune in the Nord department, Hauts-de-France, France. It lies on the Scheldt () river. Although the city and region experienced a s ...

where he obtained his

baccalauréat The ''baccalauréat'' (; ), often known in France colloquially as the ''bac'', is a French national academic qualification that students can obtain at the completion of their secondary education (at the end of the ''lycée'') by meeting certain ...

Early career

After taking his oath as a lawyer on 11 December 1984 in

Douai Douai (, , ,; pcd, Doï; nl, Dowaai; formerly spelled Douay or Doway in English) is a city in the Nord département in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Located on the river Scarpe some from Lille and from Arras, D ...

, Dupond-Moretti enrolled at the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

of Lille. Working for a Lille law firm, he began his career in the Labour Courts and then as a court appointed lawyer under the mentorship of Lille lawyer Jean Descamps and Toulouse lawyer Alain Furbury. For his results (more than 145 acquittals in 2019), Dupond-Moretti is nicknamed "Acquittator" (' + ') in the courtrooms. Notable clients have included aid group

Zoé's Ark Zoé's Ark (french: link=no, L'Arche de Zoé) is a French charity organization with the aim of increasing awareness of the crisis in Darfur and providing aid for children affected by the conflict. The organization was brought into the public's aw ...

Jérôme Kerviel Jérôme Kerviel (; born 1977) is a French rogue trader who was convicted and imprisoned in the 2008 Société Générale trading loss for breach of trust, forgery and unauthorized use of the bank's computers, resulting in losses valued at € ...

and

Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army inte ...

, but also

Patrick Balkany Patrick Balkany (born 16 August 1948 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) is a French politician. He is a former member of the National Assembly of France. He was representing the 5th constituency of the Hauts-de-Seine department, and is a member of The ...

Karim Benzema Karim Mostafa Benzema (born 19 December 1987) is a French professional footballer who plays as a striker for and captains La Liga club Real Madrid. A creative and prolific forward, Benzema is regarded as one of the best strikers of all time. ...

, Georges Tron and the brother of terrorist

Mohammed Merah Mohammed Merah (10 October 1988 – 22 March 2012) was a French jihadist who admitted to killing seven people, including three children, in several shootings in southwestern France in March 2012. He was killed following a police siege and st ...

. In 2013, Dupond-Moretti refused the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...

Cinema

Dupond-Moretti appeared as himself in the

Claire Denis Claire Denis (; born 21 April 1946) is a French film director and screenwriter. Her feature film ''Beau Travail'' (1999) has been called one of the greatest films of the 1990s, as well as of all time. Other acclaimed works include '' Trouble Ev ...

film '' Bastards''. He also played a judge in the

Claude Lelouch Claude Barruck Joseph Lelouch (; born 30 October 1937) is a French film director, screenwriter, writer, cinematographer, actor and film producer, producer. Lelouch grew up in an Algerian Jewish Family. He emerged as a prominent director in the 1 ...

film ''

Everyone's Life ''Everyone's Life'' (''Chacun sa vie et son intime conviction'') is a 2017 French comedy film written and directed by Claude Lelouch. Synopsis Twelve tales about intimate convictions leading to a thirteenth. Casting The film reunites several ...

''.

Political career

Dupond-Moretti chaired the support committee for incumbent Socialist Mayor

Martine Aubry Martine Louise Marie Aubry (; née Delors; born 8 August 1950) is a French politician. She was the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party (''Parti Socialiste'', or PS) from November 2008 to April 2012, and has been the Mayor (France), Mayo ...

in the 2008 municipal election in

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Pref ...

. He also signed a letter in her favour in ''

Libération ''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...

'' before the 2011 Socialist Party presidential primary in which she placed second. On 6 July 2020, Dupond-Moretti was named

and

Keeper of the Seals of France Keeper of the Seals of France () was an office of the French monarchy under the ''Ancien Régime''. Its principal function was to supplement or assist the Chancellor of France. Its successor office under the Republic is the Keeper of the Seals, ...

by President

in the

of Prime Minister

. In 2021, Macron directed Dupond-Moretti and Secretary of State for

Child Protection Child protection is the safeguarding of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the protection of children in and out of the home. One of the ways to e ...

Adrien Taquet to develop proposals for tightening

laws regarding child sexual abuse Laws against child sexual abuse vary by country based on the local definition of who a child is and what constitutes child sexual abuse. Most countries in the world employ some form of age of consent, with sexual contact with an underage person be ...

after a high-profile scandal involving prominent pundit

Olivier Duhamel Olivier Duhamel (born 2 May 1950) is a French former university professor and politician. As a member of the social-democratic Socialist Party (France), Socialist Party, he was elected as a member of the European Parliament from 1997 to 2004. In ...

. In the 2021 regional election, the

La République En Marche! Renaissance (RE), previously known as La République En Marche ! (frequently abbreviated LREM, LaREM or REM; translated as "The Republic on the Move" or "Republic Forward"), or sometimes called simply En Marche ! () as its original name, is a l ...

list led by Laurent Pietraszewski in the northern region of

Hauts-de-France Hauts-de-France (; pcd, Heuts-d'Franche; , also ''Upper France'') is the northernmost Regions of France, region of France, created by the territorial reform of French regions in 2014, from a merger of Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy. Its Prefectu ...

on which Dupond-Moretti was placed was eliminated in the first round of voting. It garnered than 10 percent of the vote and failed to win a single seat. Later in 2021, Dupond-Moretti was placed under investigation by the ''

Cour de Justice de la République The ''Cour de Justice de la République'' (CJR, "Court of Justice of the Republic") is a special French court established to try cases of ministerial misconduct. Its remit only extends to government ministers (or former ministers) concerning off ...

'' (CJR) over allegations he had used his ministerial position to settle scores with judges who had investigated some of his more prominent clients and friends, including former President

Nicolas Sarkozy Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...

. In late 2022, Dupond-Moretti's position as Minister of Justice came under scrutiny amid the Lola affair, which saw a teenager murdered in Paris by an Algerian illegal immigrant. In Parliament, Éric Pauget of The Republicans held the Ministry of Justice "responsible" for the murder as it failed to have the perpetrator deported prior to the murder.

Political positions

In May 2015, Dupond-Moretti declared his support for banning the National Front. In August 2020, Dupond-Moretti signed a preface to a book written by head of the national federation of hunters Willy Schraen, in which he mocked "environment ayatollahs". His comments, written before his appointment as a government minister, caused an uproar, forcing him to backtrack.

Personal life

In 1991, Dupond-Moretti married Hélène, a juror he met during a

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of Party (law), parties to a :wikt:dispute, dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence (law), evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to Adjudication, adjudicate claims or d ...

; they have two children. Now divorced, he has been in a relationship with singer Isabelle Boulay since April 2016. A passionate hunter, Dupond-Moretti owns a

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

farmhouse with

retriever A retriever is a type of gun dog that retrieves game for a hunter. Generally gun dogs are divided into three major classifications: retrievers, flushing spaniels, and pointing breeds. Retrievers were bred primarily to retrieve birds or other ...

s and trained

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

s for

falconry Falconry is the hunting of wild animals in their natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. Small animals are hunted; squirrels and rabbits often fall prey to these birds. Two traditional terms are used to describe a person ...

Publications

* with Stéphane Durand-Souffland, ''Bête noire'', Éditions Michel Lafon, 2012 * with Loïc Sécher, ''Le Calvaire et le Pardon'', Michel Lafon, 2013 * with Stéphane Durand-Souffland, '' Directs du droit '', Michel Lafon, 2017

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dupond-Moretti, Eric 1961 births Living people 20th-century French lawyers 21st-century French lawyers 20th-century French essayists People from Maubeuge French people of Italian descent Légion d'honneur refusals Members of the Borne government French Ministers of Justice