PARIS – Former French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn has been put under formal investigation on Friday over her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, after investigators at a special court in Paris concluded there were grounds to prosecute her.

Buzyn has been put under investigation for "endangering the lives of others", the prosecutor of the Republic's Court of Justice said, but not for a second possible offence of "failure to stop a disaster".

The former doctor, who will be able to appeal the decision, attended a hearing at the court on Friday, saying she welcomed "an excellent opportunity for me to explain myself and to establish the truth."

She said she would not "let the action of the government be discredited, or my action as a minister, when we did so much to prepare our country for a global health crisis that is still ongoing."

Buzyn left the post in February 2020 to run for Paris mayor, saying COVID-19 was low risk. But she later spoke of knowing a "tsunami" was approaching.

It is one of the world's first cases of a minister facing legal accountability for their pandemic response.

Buzyn took up the role as France's health minister in May 2017 and resigned just a few weeks after the first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in France.

She lost the Paris mayoral election to Anne Hidalgo last year. The former doctor then joined the cabinet of World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in January 2021.

The announcement comes as part of a wider investigation into the government's pandemic response - including its preparedness, policy changes, and its reception of scientific research into the virus.

France's current health minister Olivier Véran reportedly could also be summoned before the same judges in the coming weeks. — Agencies