Up to 15 months in prison were pronounced Monday in France against the attackers of a relative of the French First Lady, against a backdrop of anger against the pension reform.
Two men with marginalized profiles were sentenced to 12 and 15 months in prison for having assaulted a grand-nephew of Brigitte Macron, Jean-Baptiste Trogneux, on May 15 in front of his chocolate factory in Amiens, in the north of France. France.
A third defendant was released by the Amiens criminal court “for the benefit of the doubt”. The prosecution had requested heavier sentences, ranging from two and a half to three and a half years in prison, against the three men, for violence in meetings.
Prosecutor Jean-Philippe Vicentini pointed the finger at the hearing at a “gratuitous, violent and serious” assault. At the hearing, “I saw cowards” trying to “escape their responsibilities”, he said, asking for the continued detention of the defendants, aged 20, 22 and 34.
During this hearing, only Florian, an illiterate man already convicted of rape, admitted to having “slapped” the victim to defend “the friends”.
The other two, the oldest of whom is under curatorship, already convicted of violence, admit to having put trash cans in front of the sign but denied having struck blows.
Aged 30, Brigitte Macron’s grand-nephew, Jean-Baptiste Trogneux, head of the chocolate factory founded by the great-grandfather of President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, was absent from the hearing. According to a police source, he had four days of total incapacity for work (ITT).
His lawyer, Franck Delahousse, assures that, on May 15, he wanted to “defend the window of his store, already targeted several times”.
The chocolate factory, located in Amiens, has benefited from police surveillance at each demonstration in recent years.
Four other people arrested in connection with this case were released after their custody. A 16-year-old girl, also prosecuted, must later appear before a juvenile judge.
As soon as the facts were revealed, voices on the left and on the right were alarmed at the violence of the political debate, Emmanuel Macron denouncing “unbearable and unspeakable acts”. Brigitte Macron indignant at the “cowardice” of the attackers.
The assault took place on the sidelines of a “casserolade”. These concerts of saucepans have not stopped since the passage in force in Parliament and the promulgation in mid-April of the highly contested pension reform which triggered a wave of anger in France.
If they sometimes only bring together a few dozen people, they are organized almost every time Emmanuel Macron, the head of government Elisabeth Borne or a minister travels, but also during the televised speeches of the head of state.
Violence against elected officials and their families is on the rise in France. In 2022, a 32% increase in acts of physical or verbal violence against elected officials was thus recorded, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
In May, the mayor of a town on the Atlantic coast, whose home was the target of an arson, resigned: he had been under pressure for weeks from far-right groups opposed to the relocation of a center of ‘welcome.
05/06/2023 19:33:35 – Amiens (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
