Probe Into Classified Documents Leak to Have Serious Consequences for Hollande

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins has launched a preliminary probe into whether French President Francois Hollande "compromised national security."

The investigation is currently in preliminary stages, since prosecutors are reportedly trying to get details from the French Defense Ministry.

On August 24, the French newspaper Le Monde published an article, saying that Hollande let investigative journalists Gerard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme look through several documents, in particularly about airstrikes France planned in Syria in 2013.

The journalists said the papers they saw were marked as "confidential."

The investigation was requested by lawmaker Eric Ciotti, who called the leak "a flagrant and dangerous compromise to the secrecy necessary for our security and our sovereignty."

In October, Davet and Lhomme released a tell-all book about Hollande, entitled "A President Should Not Say That: Secrets of Five Years in Office."

The book records dozens of Hollande's private conversations with journalists.

In an interview with Sputnik France, lawyer Marc-Antoine Ledieu from the Paris Advocate Bureau commented on the consequences of the probe for Francois Hollande.

"When it comes to military classified information it is classified information. It doesn’t matter whether it was disclosed or not. There is the rule that a person having access to classified information can have different levels of access to different types of classified information, including classified military information, a secret and top-secret military information. The third one is almost exclusively for the president and ministers. Disclosure of such information means criminal and civil responsibility, except for the president who has legal immunity during his term," Ledieu said.

According to the lawyer, there is a big difficulty because according to the French constitution the president cannot be prosecuted for wrong-doings during the presidential term.

Ledieu said that the current situation around Francois Hollande is rather political.

"Will the French people call Hollande to account for the disclosure of classified information? I think this will depend on the political situation," he said.
Ledieu added that after Hollande leaves office he may be put on trial.

"But the political consequences [for Hollande] will be more important. They are what people will think about him. And they will be different from the legal consequences," he concluded.