This is a new victory for him in court. The graffiti artist Lekto has just been acquitted again by the Avignon criminal court for one of his frescoes which had created controversy. On April 3, 2023, he represented President Emmanuel Macron, wearing a “49.3” mustache with the aim of comparing him iconographically to Adolf Hitler.
We were then in the middle of social conflict over pension reform and the government had made use of this article of the Constitution on numerous occasions. The fresco caused a stir, especially since its author was not his first attempt. In June 2022, on the same wall of the transformer in the Italians parking lot in Avignon, it already represented the President, held, like a puppeteer, by Jacques Attali.
A work that had then been singled out by a part of the political class and by many anti-racist associations, considering that the fresco was riddled with anti-Semitic references. But on two occasions in recent months, at first instance in Avignon and then on appeal in Nîmes, Lekto had been acquitted, then prosecuted for public insult and incitement to discrimination on the grounds of origin, ethnicity, nation, race or religion.
On June 7, he appeared again in Avignon, this time for damage, sued by the Grand Avignon, owner of the transformer walls. His lawyer, Me Gaële Guenoun, spoke of a “relentlessness“from justice.”They were unable to obtain his conviction the first time and are trying to obtain it through another means to prevent him from continuing his frescoes.Lekto’s council estimated. It is accused of deterioration but it is on a hideous wall, so it could only improve it. And then we are told that we are not here to question freedom of expression but when Lekto does Michel Blanc, we don’t bother him.“
At the end of the hearing, the prosecutor did not hear it that way, requesting a suspended fine of 800 euros. Grand Avignon had filed a civil suit and claimed 480 euros for the intervention of a painter to erase the fresco and 1000 euros in procedural costs. And the decision was put under advisement for this Friday, June 28.
We were far from imagining the context in which this decision would be made, while accusations of anti-Semitism are flying from all sides at the end of the campaign for the legislative elections. But that did not disturb the court, which made its decision of acquittal, for “lack of intentional elements“. The requests from Greater Avignon were therefore rejected. The Prosecutor’s Office now has 10 days to appeal.
