Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera indicted for defamation of Noël Le Graët, former president of the FFF

The minister was indicted for defamation. EPA – TERESA SUAREZ

The Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castera was indicted in December in the investigation by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) after the defamation complaint by Noël Le Graët, we learned on Thursday March 14 from a source close to the case, confirmed by the general prosecutor's office of the Court of Cassation.

A judicial investigation has been open to the CJR, the only jurisdiction empowered to judge ministers in the exercise of their functions, since June 21 to examine the complaint of the former boss of French football, who criticizes the minister for the proposals made in February 2023 on her management of the French Football Federation (FFF).

In a press release, Rémy Heitz, attorney general at the Court of Cassation, who serves as public prosecutor at the CJR, confirmed the indictment of the minister by the investigating commission for "public defamation of a private individual".

Ms. Oudéa-Castera's lawyer did not wish to comment. That of Mr. Le Graët could not be reached immediately. At the opening of the judicial investigation, the Ministry of Sports assured that Ms. Oudéa-Castera was "serene" and "ready to answer", which she did "publicly and on various occasions in recent months, to the unfounded accusations of Mr. Le Graët".

Le Graët left the FFF with a bang in February

Noël Le Graët resigned in February with a bang from the FFF, which he had led since 2011, after a damning audit report from the General Inspectorate of the ;#39;education, sport and research (IGESR) on its management, against a backdrop of accusations of sexual harassment.

The IGESR inspectors estimated in this report that Mr. Le Graët "no longer has the legitimacy necessary to administer and represent French football", particularly given his "behavior inappropriate (…) towards women".

A procedure making indictment automatic

A few hours after her departure, her lawyer announced a complaint, claiming that Ms. Oudéa-Castera had "lied" on this report. He also highlighted a difference between the summary of the document, published on February 15, which mentioned "words" and SMS messages, "words or writings that are ambiguous for some and of a clearly sexual nature for others", and its entirety.

This report has not been made public. The press law procedure makes it almost automatic, after a defamation complaint, the referral to an investigating judge and the indictment of the author of the remarks, the substantive debate taking place at the hearing.

The case law is however different before the CJR. In 2014, its Requests Committee had thus closed a defamation complaint by the controversial polemicist Dieudonné against Manuel Valls, then Minister of the Interior, finding from the outset that the offense of defamation was not not sufficiently characterized.