VIDEO. "I have no one to talk to, for fuck's sake": When Gérald Darmanin and Eric Dupond-Moretti clashed over the handling of the riots in New Caledonia

This is a rare sequence that Yann L'Hénoret, author of the documentary Tempête : 100 jours dans les torments du Ministère de l'Intérieur , broadcast on France Télévisions on Sunday July 6, was able to witness. The director, who followed Gérald Darmanin at the end of his time at Beauvau, was a privileged witness of an interministerial crisis unit on May 16, 2024, concerning New Caledonia, then in the grip of riots for four days, which ultimately left 14 dead and caused more than two billion euros of damage.

In the crisis room, where several ministers are gathered around Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, tensions are crystallizing between the Ministers of the Interior and Justice. "We've made 200 arrests. If I may, how many have gone to prison?" Gérald Darmanin asks senior law enforcement officers, who are on a video conference. "Minister, none," he is told. "Well, it's still a problem. After a while, the cops are going to get shot. They're going to die because we arrest people and no one puts them in prison. We have a small issue ," he fumes.

"We can't caricature things like that. I think that if we arrest a murderer, he goes to jail. We shouldn't exaggerate ," retorts Eric Dupond-Moretti. "Those who are the subject of legal proceedings today are for roadblocks," and not for shootings targeting police officers. But Gérald Darmanin insists: "There is also a message of firmness: 200 arrests, and not a single arrest warrant, that's still a problem." Prime Minister Gabriel Attal also drives the point home: "If there could be a few examples, that would be good."

The conversation then turned to the absence of the public prosecutor, who was traveling abroad when the riots broke out. This complicates the flow of information and the transmission of instructions on the criminal response to the riots, Eric Dupond-Moretti tries to explain. "I'm happy for you to criticize me for the prosecutor not being there. When the prosecutor goes to Fiji, he doesn't say, Mr. Minister, I'm going to Fiji. To be honest, we tried to reach him, but there was no phone connection," Eric Dupond-Moretti defends himself. A few moments later, the latter tried to make his point heard again, once the meeting was over, during an aside with Gérald Darmanin and Gabriel Attal. "I don't have anyone to talk to, for fuck's sake," the Minister of Justice fumed to them.