The Administrative Court of Nancy announced in a press release that it had agreed with Anthony Smith, former labor inspector in the department of Marne.
“This judgment confirms that Anthony only did his job as a labor inspector by trying in the midst of the first wave of Covid-19 to act for the protection of the health of the employees of a home help association in Reims lacking protection”, welcomed his support committee.
“This judgment sheds light on the purely political nature of the sanction that Anthony suffered,” added the committee.
Anthony Smith was initially laid off in April 2020, in full confinement, while Muriel Pénicaud was Minister of Labor.
His successor, Elisabeth Borne, the current Prime Minister, had transformed the sanction into an automatic transfer to Seine-et-Marne, before finally pronouncing a transfer to the Meuse, closer to Mr. Smith’s home.
He was accused of having demanded the provision of personal protective equipment, in particular masks, and the implementation of protective measures against Covid-19, for the benefit of employees of an association for assistance with home, at a time when masks, which were lacking, were not compulsory.
At the hearing before the administrative court in September, the public rapporteur had requested the cancellation of the sanction, judging it “disproportionate given the low gravity of the alleged facts”.
“This file is empty, I only did my job as a labor inspector,” said Mr. Smith, surrounded by several dozen people, including LFI deputies Mathilde Panot and Caroline Fiat, who came to support him.
He had castigated a sanction taken “for political reasons” and an “attack on labor inspectors”.
His lawyer, Me Renaud Fages, had meanwhile denounced a “file assembled from scratch”, “to hit on a union, the CGT”, of which Anthony Smith is a member.
