The Parisian justice system has taken a new step in a highly sensitive case: an investigating judge will be appointed to look into Fabrice Leggeri, a National Rally MEP and former director of Frontex. He is suspected of complicity in crimes against humanity and torture, according to a judicial source. In the hushed corridors of the courthouses, this type of charge is never handed down by chance.
It all began with a complaint filed by the Human Rights League, supported by the Utopia 56 association, after more than two years of legal proceedings. On March 18, the Paris Court of Appeal ordered an investigation. The investigating chamber determined that there was sufficient evidence to investigate the alleged facts, particularly the suggestion that the former official had "encouraged" practices aimed at having Libyan and Greek authorities intercept boats, with the intention of preventing migrants from entering the European Union.
Frontex, the border and the criminal red line
Fabrice Leggeri headed Frontex from January 2015 to April 2022, a period during which the European border control agency found itself at the heart of repeated controversies. Illegal pushbacks in the Aegean Sea, reports in the Mediterranean, criticism from NGOs, and press investigations: his tenure often resembled a control room on high alert, with one question recurring like the tide: where does border protection end and rights violations begin? In 2024, the former head of the agency joined the National Rally as number three on its list for the European elections, before taking his seat in the European Parliament.
The MEP's entourage indicated that he was unaware of these developments and had "no comment at this stage." On the plaintiffs' side, the lawyer for the LDH (Human Rights League), Emmanuel Daoud, welcomed the opening of the judicial inquiry: a French judge will now examine the former leader's potential criminal liability "in tragedies that occurred in the Mediterranean." The word has been uttered—responsibility—and it carries significant weight when it concerns decisions made behind closed doors, in the name of a migration policy often reduced to figures and maps.
These figures, precisely, reveal the harsh reality: according to the International Organization for Migration, approximately 82,000 migrants have died or gone missing since 2014, including 34,000 in the Mediterranean, one of the deadliest routes. UN agencies report "serious violations" targeting migrants detained in Libya, while NGOs accuse Frontex of prioritizing aerial surveillance to spot boats earlier and alert the Libyan coast guard rather than European rescue services. What remains now is a lengthy and methodical legal process, the outcome of which will reveal the extent to which France is willing to examine, case by case, the blind spots in its border policy.
Community
Comments
Comments are open, but protected against spam. Initial posts and comments containing links undergo manual review.
Be the first to comment on this article.