Fabrice Leggeri, the number three on the Rassemblement National (RN, far right) slate for the European elections, has been charged with complicity in crimes against humanity and torture. According to Le Monde's information, the Human Rights League of France (LDH) and the French migrant defense association Utopia 56 filed a complaint on Tuesday, April 23, in the capacity of plaintiffs with the chief investigating judge at the Judicial Court of Paris.
This legal action has taken aim at the man who is now an RN candidate in the European parliamentary elections and was the director of the European border and coast guard agency Frontex from 2015 to 2022. The plaintiffs have accused the former high-ranking European civil servant − now on leave from the Interior Ministry, his original appointment − of having participated in, either by facilitating or covering it up, the pushback of migrant boats by the Greek authorities to Turkey, as well as the interception by the Libyan coast guard of migrant boats attempting to reach Italy.
These acts "facilitated the perpetration of crimes against humanity and crimes of torture against migrants by the Greek and Libyan authorities," said lawyer Emmanuel Daoud, who is representing the organizations. When contacted, Leggeri denounced "false allegations" based on "political maneuvering" aimed at "discrediting the RN ticket."
Over the past decade, irregular migration across the Mediterranean has fueled a political crisis within the European Union. In 2015, a record year, over a million migrants reached the continent by sea. To enhance controls at its external borders, the EU substantially increased the number of resources available to Frontex over the years, with its budget having gone from €143 to €845 million between 2015 and 2023.
With these resources in place, Leggeri is said to have pursued "a deliberate and illegal policy of rejecting migrants," said LDH president Patrick Baudouin. "There is, furthermore, an alignment of mindset and action between his functions as executive director of Frontex and his current political positioning as part of the RN ticket in the European elections."
On a campaign visit to the southern French city of Perpignan on Saturday, April 20, Leggeri again decried "uncontrolled immigration at European borders" and called for the examination of asylum applications "in consulates outside European countries" and for "reception camps for migrants" rescued at sea on the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
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