Commissioner Rabah Souchi was sentenced, Friday March 8, to six months in prison by the Lyon criminal court, which found him guilty of having ordered the police charge which caused Geneviève Legay to fall in Nice on March 23 2019, during a banned “yellow vest” demonstration. Thrown to the ground by this charge, the activist and departmental spokesperson for Attac, then aged 73, was seriously injured. She suffered a head trauma and multiple fractures.
The commissioner was prosecuted for “complicity in violence by a person holding public authority”. The court found that the order to charge “was neither justified, nor proportionate, nor necessary” and followed the prosecution’s requisitions during the trial on January 11 and 12. Prosecutor Alain Grellet then estimated that the order to charge the demonstrators had been given “neither necessary, nor proportional, nor in accordance with the regulations”.
“I am very happy with what is happening today because I always wanted justice to be done. Of course, six months suspended prison sentence is not much, but the prosecutor’s indictment was magnificent,” reacted Geneviève Legay, from Nice, surrounded by dozens of people who came to support her in front of the courthouse, to the announcement of the decision. She added: “If I wanted to do this trial, it is also because I wanted it to be useful to all victims of police violence (…). I wanted to win so that it would set a precedent, it must stop, it must stop.”
His lawyer Me Arie Alimi welcomed “a fundamental decision”, affirming that “from now on no order giver will be protected by immunity, irresponsibility in matters of use of force or weapons by the forces of the order”.
“Inappropriate orders”
At the time of the events, the case had a strong media resonance, fueled by the contradictory points of view of the authorities, the Nice prosecutor having, initially, denied any contact between the activist and the forces of the order. A thesis which was taken up at the Elysée by Emmanuel Macron. In 2020, after an investigation, the General Inspectorate of the National Police, however, issued a report estimating that the police load at the time of the events had been disproportionate due to “inappropriate orders”.
The trial examined the conditions in which the charge had been launched, in a very short time after the usual summons, which, according to the prosecution, had not left the demonstrators time to disperse, nor for the police to prepare properly. During the trial, Geneviève Legay testified about a day that left her “really diminished”. Believing that nothing could happen to her, with the peace flag in hand, she “wanted to take one last turn of the flag and say ‘freedom to demonstrate’,” she said.
For the defense, on the contrary, the order given was “totally legal”, according to Me Laurent-Franck Liénard, who had requested the release of his client. The lawyer further argued that his client could not be prosecuted “for an act committed by another official”, further considering that the facts did not meet “the criteria of the law regarding complicity”.
Prosecuted for “complicity in violence by a person holding public authority”, Rabah Souchi assured that the decision to charge was “the most effective tactic that day”, in order to meet the dispersal objective set by the prefect. The action was justified, according to him, by the presence of demonstrators on the tram tracks and their refusal to leave even though the demonstration was prohibited. He also insisted on the role of the police officer who pushed Ms. Legay, believing that this agent had “detached himself from the collective action”. The latter was not prosecuted, which gave rise to extensive discussions during the various pleadings and requisitions.
At the beginning of February, Rabah Souchi, 54, was appointed deputy director of the Nice municipal police.
