Agnès Buzyn, a former minister in France, being investigated over how she handled the raging COVID-19 pandemic when the country confirmed her first case.
French authorities believed that Buzyn endangered the lives of several people by exposing them to the risk of contracting the infectious disease.
It would be recalled that Buzyn left her role as a French minister in February 2020 to run for Paris mayor, on the ground that COVID-19 was low risk. But urprisingly to many people, she later spoke of knowing a “tsunami” was approaching when France confirmed her first case of the virus.
It is one of the world’s first cases of a minister facing legal accountability for their pandemic response.
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A special court set up in France in 1993 to investigate government ministers accused of misconduct will decide whether to prosecute her.
At a court hearing on Friday, September 10, the 58-year-old said she welcomed the chance to explain herself and “to establish the truth.”
She added that she would not let the government’s actions or her own be discredited “when we did so much to prepare our country for a global health crisis.”
Buzyn took up the role as France’s health minister in May 2017 and resigned just a few weeks after the first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the country.
She lost the Paris mayoral election to Anne Hidalgo last year. The former doctor then joined the cabinet of World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in January 2021.
Le Monde said Buzyn had spoken before leaving her post of “very low risks” of a major COVID-19 outbreak. But in June 2020, she revealed that “When I left the ministry, I cried because I knew a tsunami wave was approaching.”
The announcement comes as part of a wider investigation into the government’s pandemic response – including its preparedness, policy changes, and its reception of scientific research into the virus.
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