Darmanin wants to extend police custody in cases of aggravated sexual violence and feminicide

POLITICS – One “strong proposition”, says Gérald Darmanin. The new Minister of Justice announced this Thursday, December 26 on TF1 that he wanted to extend the maximum duration of police custody for individuals suspected of violence against women, in order to increase it from 48 to 72 hours.

It was when he was invited to react on the lessons to be learned from the Mazan rape trial, during which Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison for having drugged his wife and having delivered her without her consent sexually to dozens of men, that Gérald Darmanin submitted his proposal as you can hear it below.

“It is society that must learn a lesson from this. I have a first suggestion to make. I propose that in the case of aggravated sexual violence, feminicides, which we have difficulty solving in our country, which is a tragedy, that police custody can last up to 72 hours”he declared.

A divisive appointment to the Ministry of Justice

And to explain: “It allows us to protect the woman who has been threatened, violated, attacked. This allows technical and scientific police findings to be made. And it allows you to question the person at greater length. Today it is 48 hours, tomorrow it is 72 hours maximum, obviously the public prosecutor can lift custody whenever he wishes. »

The new Minister of Justice, previously at the Ministry of the Interior now occupied by Bruno Retailleau, was appointed at the beginning of the week in the Bayrou government. Feminists denounced his entry into this position just after the Mazan rape trial, some seeing it as a spit. “in the face of all women victims of sexist and sexual violence”.

The Minister of Justice has in fact already been accused by two women of rape and abuse of weakness in the context of his elected functions. Before the courts, the first case ended with a dismissal of the case, while the second was dismissed.