the essential
During the 1995 presidential elections, Gers judge Jean-Pierre Belmas condemned Lepénists for violence in Auch. The current situation leaves him bitter.
March 21, 1995, in Auch. The presidential campaign saw the arrival of the National Front caravan, including several buses resembling CRS transports. On board, dozens of members of the frontist security service, also dressed like CRS. Quickly, Auscitain students came to oppose the “FN youth caravan”. Clashes break out, batons against slogans. Three teenagers file a complaint.
Tried in immediate appearance, two leaders of the National Front are found guilty. The collegiate court even worsened the requisitions: 8 months suspended and a 5,000 F fine for the son-in-law of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the father of Marion Maréchal, and his sidekick. The public prosecutor asked for 6 months. Their lawyer – a certain Marine Le Pen – was unsuccessful.
Frontal attacks
“Even today, I have bitter memories of this affair,” confides Jean-Pierre Belmas. He presided over the collegiate court that day. He had to leave the courthouse in a police car, facing the animosity of FN activists. The evening of the deliberation, Jean-Marie Le Pen is on the TF1 set. He denounces the judgment, attacks Jean-Pierre Belmas by name.
DDM – MC
“For several weeks, I was followed. People from the FN took information about me… Yes, it was a period of worry. » But he fears even more what could happen in the event of the election of an RN government. “The strength of justice is its independence, its impartiality and its competence. Tomorrow, a government can gradually change the people in office, change the skills… The RN announces the hiring of thousands of magistrates. Where are they found? The magistrates school only trains 400 students per year. »
Rule of law under threat
The violent passage of the National Front in Auch convinced this “child of the Republic”, of modest origin, that the values conveyed by the parties of Le Pen father and daughter were only a showcase of respectability. “The far right does not change: Marine Le Pen is a chatterbox, but they are always looking for scapegoats! »
He who claims to be “an old-fashioned judge” fears seeing the rule of law, the cornerstone of democracy, undermined. “Today as yesterday, the ideas of the FN and the RN are the same. When they talk about land law, do they know that it dates back to 1515? That it was formalized into law in 1804? It has only been suppressed once: in 1940, under Pétain! »
The scores of Marine Le Pen’s party did not surprise him. He followed the progress of the FN and then the RN from election to election, with the anxiety of seeing the extreme right take power since the defeat of Lionel Jospin in 2002.
“The current situation takes me back decades. Then as now, I found myself facing people who, once in power, can get away with anything. At the time, they threw my name out into the open, and I fear that we will end up with people who will do like their peers in Italy or Hungary. Once they have power, they never let it go. » His only wish: that his children can live tomorrow in a democratic France.
