Murder of Thomas: “There was never any desire to hide the identities” of the suspects, affirms Olivier Véran

Mine clearance operation for the government. While the death of Thomas, around ten days ago at the end of a ball in the village of Crépol, caused turmoil in the country, and agitated the political class by going from a simple news item to a real social fact, a controversy has ignited debates in recent days. Should the names of the nine suspects in the attack, which resulted in the death of this young man, be revealed to the general public?

Having taken a long time to be revealed, the surnames were finally leaked to the press and social networks last weekend. This is why some Republicans and the national right have accused the executive of wanting to hide these foreign-sounding first names so as not to be accused of stigmatization. Thursday evening, the government spokesperson wanted to explain this. “There has never been any desire to hide identities,” insisted Olivier Véran on BFMTV.

“I am willing that we are in a society of continuous information where sometimes populism is heard very strongly, who would want us to judge before having the facts,” mocked the member of the government. Before ironically “envying” “those who manage to judge before having the facts”, and not “envying a justice system which would decide to judge before having the facts.” As for the publication of the names of the authors, the public prosecutor of Valencia recalled, according to Olivier Véran, that they are only revealed “from the moment a referral to the investigating judge is made.”

“The big difference between a person who is arrested and a person who is brought before the courts is that in one case there is a presumption of innocence, and in the other case, there is a sufficiently strong presumption to take him to court,” also recalled the former Minister of Health. For him, the message from the executive is the following: “We do not hand over to popular vindictiveness the names of people, who are suspected, without having, even if only, taken into police custody.”

It should be remembered that this controversy around first names was the subject of a heated exchange of arms this week between the Minister of the Interior and the president of Reconquest! Eric Zemmour. If the second accused the first cop in France of wanting to “hide these names”, indicating that “everyone will understand why”, Gérald Darmanin had, Tuesday on France Inter, “taken Mr. Zemmour's remarks as a personal racist insult to ( his) against.” “I know why he says it: my middle name is Moussa. I am the grandson of French fighters who come from Algeria. He doesn’t do it by chance,” joked the tenant of Place Beauvau. Which had left “the insinuations of Mr. Zemmour in the nauseating side of his thoughts.”