Fabrice Leggeri, a MEP for the Rassemblement National (RN) and former director of Frontex, the agency responsible for European borders, is the subject of a criminal investigation on suspicion of “complicity in crimes against humanity.” The attack, launched by a small French left-wing group accustomed to such tactics, reflects the visceral hostility that the very idea of border control provokes in some quarters.
The Human Rights League (Ligue des Droits de l’Homme, or LDH) has secured a court order for an investigating judge to be appointed shortly to investigate the RN MEP. A long-standing institution founded in France in 1898, at the time of the Dreyfus Affair, to defend the unjustly accused Jewish captain, LDH has transformed itself into a tool of the militant Left to champion all manner of progressive causes—from the fight against police violence to opposition to the deportation of illegal immigrants.
This time, it intends to direct its attacks against the former director of the European agency Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, who held this post from 2015 to 2022. In 2024, the LDH filed a complaint against him, accusing him of having “encouraged” his agents to facilitate the interception of migrant boats by the Libyan and Greek authorities. More broadly, the LDH accuses him of having “opted for a policy aimed at preventing, whatever the cost—particularly in terms of human lives—the entry of migrants into the EU”. After a two-year legal process, the complaint led to the opening of investigations following a decision by the Paris Court of Appeal, which ruled that there were “grounds to investigate the facts as set out in the complaint.”
The LDH’s lawyer, Emmanuel Daoud, intends to hold Fabrice Leggeri personally criminally liable “for the massacre that has resulted in thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean, particularly among children and women.” He wishes to raise the question of “the institutional and criminal liability of those who instigated and organised these policies of hunting down migrants, in defiance of human rights”—for him and for the League he represents, the blame will always lie with those who fight against illegal immigration, and not with those who cause it, such as smuggling networks. The LDH also criticises Frontex, via Leggeri, for its close collaboration with the Libyan coastguard in hunting down migrant boats, with the latter sometimes intervening outside their national waters.
When contacted by the press, RN MP Philippe Ballard, a colleague of Leggeri’s, acknowledged the “human tragedy” of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean but refused to hold Leggeri and Frontex responsible. “Turning back illegal migrants was part of his mission,” he emphasised. According to Ballard, it would make more sense to target the “smuggler mafias” who do not hesitate to embark on the Mediterranean crossing without any regard for the human lives entrusted to them.
The abusive nature of such an accusation and the highly controversial use of the term “complicity in crimes against humanity” demonstrate the outrageous nature of the LDH’s action, which is clearly motivated by political considerations.
Leggeri joined the ranks of the RN in 2024 and was elected to the European Parliament under the banner of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s party in the last European elections. This is not the first time the League has specifically targeted the RN. In 2017, it explicitly called for a “block against the RN” during the second round of the presidential election, which saw Emmanuel Macron face Marine Le Pen for the first time.
