In Avignon, this Monday, May 5, 2025, a tribute ceremony will be paid to the police commander Éric Masson, killed on service on May 5, 2021 during an anti -Drogue operation.
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On May 5, 2021, Eric Masson, Brigadier was killed at close range by a drug trafficker in Avignon. Four years after this drama which had deeply marked the city and the profession, a moment of meditation is scheduled for Monday at 4 p.m. Monday in front of the police hotel In the presence of the mayor of Avignon, Cécile Helle (PS), as well as the prefect of Vaucluse, Thierry Suquet.
Eric Masson, brigadier killed at close range by a drug dealer in Avignon. Four years after this drama which had deeply marked the city and the profession, a moment of meditation made it possible to remember this May 5, 2025. • © fred roche
In the municipal council, at the time of deliberation to give the name of Eric Masson, the mayor Cécile Helle, returned to the events and their impacts on the city and the inhabitants.
On this occasion, a square bearing its name will be inaugurated on rue Rassau in Avignon.
A public garden in Avignon now bears the name of the policeman killed in the street in 2021. • © Frederic Roche / France Télévisions
“The trauma is today very real”, recalled at the opening of the municipal council Cécile Helle, who wishes to do the square “A place of appeasement, concord and peace”, Indicates the Marseillaise. “A fraternal place as we like to co -produce them on the city of Avignon, far from the violence and the barbarism which expressed themselves there on May 5, 2021”.
On May 5, 2021, Brigadier Eric Masson, 36, was shot down during a trivial control.
On that day, the departmental intervention group (GDI) returned from an operation in Carpentras to combat drug trafficking. He is redirected to downtown Avignon, a dyer of the dyers, for a crowd near a known deal point. At the crossroads of rue Thiers and rue Amphoux, the five police officers, in civilian clothes, attend a transaction : A woman buys from two dealers drugs. They control it 300 meters further, rue du Râteau.
The two dealers then come back on site. One of them takes out a weapon and shoots the brigadier. A bullet in the heart, the other in the abdomen, a third in the hand, Éric Masson collapses. His colleague takes shelter behind a car and opens the fire, but the killer flees and his accomplice too. Despite the rescue intervention, the brigadier succumbs to his injuries. The death of the young father of two touches the whole of France. The brigadier had withdrawn his bulletproof vest returning from the intervention.
His death had aroused great national emotion and led to an official tribute chaired by the Prime Minister at the time, Jean Castex. He had been promoted to commander of police and made a Knight of the Legion of Honor posthumously.
After five days on the run, the alleged shooter and his accomplice were arrested on the A9 motorway, at the Remoulins toll. The two men, in around twenty years, identified and monitored by the BRIs (research and arrest brigade) of Montpellier and Marseille, sought to go to Spain. Two other people had also been arrested, including the “Conveyor”, another man, responsible for driving them to Spain.
In March 2024, the main accused, Ilias Akoudad, was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment, with a 20 -year security period, for the murder of the police officer by the Assize Court of Vaucluse. The main accused had confessed on the 8th day of the trial having shot. He did not appeal.
