French Police and Magistrate Unions Protest Darmanin Memo on Child Abuse Inquiries

The leaked memorandum

In late July 2026, French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin sent a 12-page memorandum to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez reviewing procedural shortcomings in investigations into sexual violence against minors. The document compiled reports from general prosecutors in the aftermath of the Lyhanna affair, a case in which suspect Jérôme Barella had faced multiple complaints of child sexual abuse without being arrested or prosecuted. Darmanin identified systemic problems across training, resources, supervision, and tracking tools, while citing an alleged phantom backlog of cases never transmitted to judicial authorities. Details of the internal memorandum were made public by the newspaper Le Monde in early August 2026, creating friction between the justice and interior departments.

Joint union opposition

The memorandum triggered a joint response from the country's primary police and judicial unions on 3 September 2026. The National Police Commissioners' Union (SCPN), led by Frédéric Lauze, and the French Magistrates' Union (USM), led by Ludovic Friat, co-authored an open letter addressed to the justice minister. The two organizations asserted that the ministry chose to assign individual blame across specific police stations and departments rather than addressing long-standing structural deficits. They argued that operational failures stem from decades of mismatch between assigned workloads and allocated funding, resulting in obsolete IT tools, a shortage of judicial police officers, and an enduring deficit of magistrates.

Throwing public servants who work daily in the service of the nation under deeply degraded conditions to the wolves constitutes a demagogic and sterile posture.

The union leaders stressed that the criminal justice chain does not lack professional dedication among its staff, but suffers from insufficient human, material, and logistical resources.

Union reform demands

To resolve systemic bottlenecks, the SCPN and USM presented a series of policy requests to the justice ministry. The unions called for a strict simplification of procedural nullity rules, the streamlining of preliminary investigations and police custody formalities, and the expansion of specialized investigative methods. They also urged the government to overhaul criminal justice IT networks and modernize digital data interception techniques. Both organisations demanded an immediate halt to political indictments and contradictory administrative directives that overburden court registries and police stations.

Interior Ministry reaction

Nuñez addressed the dispute on 3 September 2026 during an interview on RTL radio, criticizing the public leak of an internal working document. The interior minister formally rejected the concept of a phantom backlog, arguing that unentered files in police or gendarmerie stations are not forgotten cases. Nuñez maintained that investigators prioritize inquiries in close coordination with local prosecutors and defended the conduct of judicial investigation personnel. He confirmed that he will submit a point-by-point written rebuttal to Darmanin before holding direct talks with the justice minister in the coming days.

This letter is a working document that was not intended to be broadcast. It called for an adversarial response, and I will provide that response in writing, point by point.