Narrative
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From early morning to nightfall, the story of the last electric hours of an extraordinary trial in the court and its surroundings.
It’s as if all the sliders of this already extraordinary trial were turned up to the maximum for a few final hours. 350 journalists from all over the world, the street closed to traffic, hundreds of police officers deployed to manage a dense crowd gathered in front of the court from early in the morning… And a wait, which will maintain the tension until the verdict is pronounced, then liberating , among all the protagonists, anger, disappointment, tears, but also a feeling of release, a shared necessity that these almost four months of hearings finally end, to consider what comes next. From the courtroom to the verdict room, story of the day when the 51 accused in the Mazan rape trial were sentenced by the Vaucluse criminal court.
7:15 a.m. “Shame has changed sides, and justice?”
Daylight has not yet dawned in Avignon when several hundred journalists gather in front of the court gates, while the crowd overflows the sidewalk. A swarm of cameras is trained on the courthouse. Opposite, a new banner from the feminist collective Les Amazones d’Avignon adorns the city’s centuries-old ramparts: “Thank you Gisèle.” A few meters further on, a collage is addressed directly to the Vaucluse departmental criminal court: “Shame has changed sides, and justice?” Ruth, who came with her daughter from Germany, holds up a sign, which she translates: “The shame must change sides. Thank you Gisèle.”
8:30 a.m. Accused with bowed heads and crate of oranges
Heads bowed, the accused slip through the massed crowd before
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