Eva Joly

J’aurais aimé aimer ce livre. Pour son auteur d’abord. Sans parler de ses opinions politiques, je dois avouer que je suis assez admirative du parcours de cette femme et de ce que cela a dû lui demander de courage, de ténacité, d’intelligence. Née Norvégienne, magistrate dans le système judiciaire français, juge d’instruction au pôle financier… Un sacré parcours, on ne peut pas dire moins.
Certes, pas un parcours littéraire, donc je ne m’attendais pas à de la grande littérature, même si Eva Joly, consciente de ses forces comme de ses limites, s’est adjoint le concours d’une journaliste, et c’est honnête de l’annoncer dès la couverture. Mais tout de même, avec son expérience, toutes les filouteries qu’elle a dû voir, il devait y avoir matière à monter un meilleur scénario quand même, non ?
Ici, on accumule les poncifs, les lieux communs. Rien de bien nouveau. L’Afrique est l’Afrique, les corrompus sont les corrompus, les trop faibles sont éliminés et les dindons de la farce c’est nous. Beaucoup de personnages au début, un peu difficile de bien suivre qui est qui, mais on s’y fait. Et on attend des révélations, on espère apprendre quelque chose, mais non, pas grand-chose. Un espèce de plus suspens vers la moitié de l’histoire qui m’y a fait reprendre goût mais vite retombé à plat.
Dommage, très dommage. Il y avait pourtant, j’en suis sûre, tellement de choses à dire, à faire comprendre. Mais on reste à la surface du scandale politico-terroristo-financier. Dommage, vraiment très dommage.… (mehr)

The French title of Eva Joly’s Justice Under Siege is “Do we want to live in a world like this?” The tragedy is that we do live in a world like this, a world riddled with corruption in the highest echelons of power even in our democratic part of it.
Eva came to France as an au pair from Norway and married the boss’s son. She qualified as a lawyer and was working as an investigating magistrate when the Elf corruption file landed on her desk.
Her story of the investigation that followed is frightening. Efforts were made to stop her work and they originated at the highest levels of the French political elite. Evidence was tampered with and her life was threatened. Her story is one of dogged tenacity through eight years of laborious work.
I first became aware of the story when I heard Eva interviewed on Woman’s Hour. She was speaking of the British government’s decision to abandon the investigation into the BAe bribery scandal. Her comment was that, despite a vicious campaign by the corrupt managers of Elf and their political cronies, the French legal system was sufficiently independent and robust to face off the attacks and that her investigation was brought to a successful conclusion. The perpetrators who had relied on what they thought was the impunity of their position, were in the end unable frustrate the process of the law. Her freedom to operate with the support of her superiors contrasted with the weakness of the British system where the government continually struggles to push itself above the law and often succeeds.
At the end of her investigations Eva returned to Norway and has represented her country on international bodies set up to fight corruption. She estimates that the scale of these crimes runs into billions of dollars every year.
She dedicates her book to 25 individually-named investigating magistrates and journalists, in all parts of the world, who were killed because of their efforts expose corruption and to bring highly placed-criminals to book.
This story of intrigue should be read by everyone. It will change your view of highly placed politicians and businessmen for ever.… (mehr)