At the Paris criminal court,
He didn’t come for “clash”, neither this Tuesday, nor November 10, 2022 on the set of “Touche pas à mon poste” (TPMP). This is what Louis Boyard, civil party in the trial of Cyril Hanouna, against whom the MP filed a complaint for public insults towards a person entrusted with a public service mission, asserts at the bar. The star host of C8, who did not come to explain himself, faces a fine of 12,000 euros. The court has reserved its decision and will deliver its judgment on February 20, 2025.
Five insults are of interest to the court, uttered during the broadcast: “you idiot”, “you’re an idiot”, “you’re a jerk”, “you’re a buffoon”, “you’re a piece of shit”. Certain “derogatory” remarks, such as “you came to be smart”, are “repeated, two, three, four times to anesthetize you”, it is “the Hanouna method”, denounces one of Louis Boyard’s lawyers in his plea. They directly followed criticism from the elected LFI towards “press magnates” and in particular Vincent Bolloré, owner of C8 and therefore boss of Cyril Hanouna.
“Almighty power” versus “media stunt”
These insults “in front of the whole of France, in front of columnists who are against you, a host who is against you, an audience who is against you”, did not leave the 24-year-old MP indifferent, he maintained. questioned by Cyril Hanouna’s lawyers. The elected official for the 3rd constituency of Val-de-Marne claims to have even “felt hatred” from Cyril Hanouna. “I believe that the will [à travers ces injures] it is to belittle, humiliate. We feel a feeling of omnipotence,” he says again in his blue suit and white sneakers, regretting the lack of explanations from the main person concerned.
On the defense side, the lawyers see it as a maneuver, a “premeditated provocation”. Stéphane Hasbanian, one of Cyril Hanouna’s advisors, also underlines that the MP, proof by the image, “does not flinch”. “This sequence is a dream, a miracle, it happened exactly as he hoped, he was delighted”, adds a second lawyer for the host who denounces a “trap”, a “media stunt”.
The status of deputy in question
We feel the deputy still shaken by the 9-minute sequence when it is broadcast on the screen of the 17th criminal chamber of the Paris court. Arms crossed, he shakes his head, raises his eyebrows, rolls his eyes to the sky. But what shocked the elected official the most was “the desire for censorship”. “I could not explain my reasoning, I am a deputy, an elected official of the nation, to present political ideas and I have in front of me a press manager, a presenter, who tells me that I have not the right to say that.” “I was insulted for my political remarks,” he says.
These insults earned the Canal+ group channel a record fine of 3.5 million euros imposed by Arcom.
No one really denies the insults uttered, impossible since they were recorded and broadcast. But the whole question that arises in court, according to the prosecutor and the defense lawyers, is ultimately to determine whether the offense “against a person charged with a public service mission” is characterized, namely whether Cyril Hanouna insulted Louis Boyard in his capacity as a deputy or his political action. And Stéphane Hasbanian recalled the jurisprudence of the case of Nadine Morano against Guy Bedos in which the plaintiff had been dismissed because her status as an elected official had not been characterized in the insult “slut”.
