Agnès Buzyn, France’s former health minister, has been placed under investigation over her handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Prosecutors at a Paris court decided Friday that there were grounds to prosecute her for “endangering the lives of others.”
Before speaking to the prosecutors, who are looking into France’s response to the pandemic, Buyzn told reporters it was “an excellent opportunity for me to explain myself and to set the record straight,” Le Monde reported. At least 115,000 people have died from COVID-19 in France, according to Public Health France.
Buzyn, 58, became health minister in May 2017 but quit in February 2020 to run in the Paris mayoral election for President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist La République En Marche party after the previous candidate, Benjamin Griveaux, was forced to withdraw over a sexting scandal. Buzyn’s mayoral bid was unsuccessful and in January she took a role at the World Health Organization in Geneva.
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