In July 1985, an attack on a Greenpeace ship was carried out in the port of Auckland by the SDECE’s operations unit, on orders from the Minister of Defense. The case captured the attention of the French public from the arrest of the two French agents—the Turenge “fake couple”—in July 1985 until their release to the Hao Atoll in June 1986. The settlement was brokered under the auspices of United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.
From a professional standpoint, the two main critical phases were the arbitration between the French government and Greenpeace regarding the loss of the ship and the guilty plea before the Auckland Court.
At the request of Daniel Soulez Lariviere—supported by Louis Joinet in the Prime Minister’s office, Jean-Louis Bianco at the Élysée Palace, and Robert Badinter at the Ministry of Justice—the French government reached a compromise for the first time in a tort case and accepted a “guilty plea” for the two military personnel. It was necessary to separate the case involving the Greenpeace organization from that of the agents detained in New Zealand. Arbitration between Greenpeace and the French government was immediately organized and finalized after compensation was paid to the family of the photographer killed during the operation—an operation that had been planned to avoid any casualties. Furthermore, compensation for Greenpeace for the loss of its ship was awarded by the arbitral tribunal appointed in Geneva.
As for the two agents, the matter had to be removed from the judicial sphere as soon as possible and brought into the realm of international political negotiations. The goal was achieved, since the Turenge couple—who had been arrested in July 1985—were released in June 1986 to the Hao Atoll and returned to mainland France in 1987 and 1989. This was made possible by the Anglo-Saxon system of plea bargaining, which allows for a dialogue between the prosecution and the defense to negotiate a solution to resolve a crisis. In this case, it involved accepting a “guilty plea” in exchange for reclassifying the charges from first-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. The trial lasted only 25 minutes for the hearing to formalize the change in charges and the guilty plea; 1 hour and 15 minutes for the mitigation argument regarding extenuating circumstances.
Having long been familiar with the Anglo-Saxon legal system and the American plea bargain system, the firm was a pioneer in the use of these methods, which marked a turning point in its practice and have recently returned to the spotlight in France thanks to the Sapin 2 Law, which allows for the signing of CJIPs (judicial agreements in the public interest)—a law of which the firm has been a staunch advocate.