Dramane is miserable. Without a residence permit or a job, he has been surviving here and there in the Paris region since 2019, the year he arrived from Mali. He is staying in a social hotel “where there is always noise”. On May 24, in Claye-Souilly (Seine-et-Marne), the man broke down and attacked two children. Then, armed with a knife, he “repelled the crowd”.
The interpreter presses his right shoulder against the window of the defendant’s box in room 3e criminal chamber of the Meaux judicial court. He translates to Dramane the report of the facts with which he is accused: violence against minors aged 11 and 13; violence against adults who intervened. All without incapacity for work, although one man was injured in a hand and a toe. The accused appears before the police because he did not respect the judicial control prohibiting him from returning to the scene of the altercation. On May 27, three days after his arrest, the 21-year-old Malian returned to the hotel room where he was accommodated free of charge by an association that helps immigrants. This is also the subject of his first objection: “It’s the place where I live!” How can a judge stop me from sleeping at home? »
The patience of the magistrates will be tested throughout the trial because of Dramane’s incomprehension of each person’s rights and duties. For example, “grabbing by the collar” an 11-year-old girl who “felt a feeling of strangulation”, “pulling by the hair” the 13-year-old brother who defended her, “threatening them with a kitchen knife” as indicated on the report, does not mean, in his eyes, that he “violated children”.
“I was afraid of the crowd. But I didn’t prick anyone! »
So he denies, without a lawyer, having committed reprehensible actions: “There is always noise in this hotel. The children are screaming, looking for me. It was after 9 p.m.! What time do they sleep? » The president is willing to agree that “the situation is difficult” in this type of establishment, however “there are other ways to resolve it. By speaking, in particular.” Dramane: “Yes, it’s the best method but they don’t hear me. I went to ask them to stop shouting, they told me to get out, they made fun of me!
– Did you, yes or no, grab the girl and pull the boy by the hair?
– Oui.
– So, these are constitutive elements of violence.
– I was the object of mockery…
– The adults who intervened say you were agitated. A hotel employee had to hold you down because you were so virulent.
– He’s a resident, not an employee! He provoked me.
– What about the other person who was injured when your knife broke?
– He hurt himself when he fell.
– Well, I don’t know if we’re going to make it,” says Stéphane Léger.
The assessor judge Guillaume Servant, following him: “Why were you carrying a knife?
– I had it like that.
– In police custody, you indicated that you had to defend yourself. Against who ?
– I was afraid of the crowd. I pushed her away. But I didn’t prick anyone!
– We are not in the USA. We do not walk around armed.
– It was a kitchen knife…”
“What then, if the children don’t listen? »
Zoé Debuse, deputy prosecutor, in turn tries to make Dramane understand “that we have no right to hit children. Even if we are the parents.
– What to do, then, if the children don’t listen? »
Asked about his overall vision of “the situation”, he responds sharply: “I have nothing to say.” The psychiatrist who examined him did not “detect any disorders that impaired his judgment” and did not “recommend treatment”. It therefore remains to study his life path, quickly summarized: misery, and more misery. Although Dramane has no criminal record, he has nevertheless been illegal since 2019.
“Have you made a request for regularization?
– Oui.
– What is your status? Do you have a residence permit?
– No. I just have a receipt.
– What are you living on ?
– The State gives me an allowance, the association puts me up in a hotel. Sometimes I do a job.
– Until when will you be supported?
– It is not specified.
– If you are released this evening, where will you go?
– I don’t know. »
And so on.
“You are leaving the department this evening, is that understood? »
At the end of the dialogue of the deaf, the prosecutor demanded “the least worst solution”: six months in prison under the regime of semi-liberty, 100 euros fine, ban on reappearing in Claye-Souilly. It takes into account “his perception of reality which is different” from the filmed scene, and his misunderstanding of the obligations of a citizen.
Dramane is angry: “If I am not respected in France, I will return to Mali! I agree to go back to my country. »
He was finally sentenced to six months’ simple suspended sentence, a €100 fine and banned, for three years, from contacting the victims and staying in Seine-et-Marne. “With provisional execution,” the president told him. This means that you are leaving the department this evening. It’s understood ? »
He says yes. And leaves with the police. He doesn’t have a lawyer to explain to him that he still has the right to pick up his little package at the hotel where residents in the same predicament as him are living.
