the essential
Having to plead his case alone, a craftsman in his fifties was sentenced by the Foix court to a citizenship training course on Tuesday, June 11, after insulting a municipal police officer in Pamiers and then advocating terrorism.
File in hand, Marco*, in his fifties, takes the stand of the Foix judicial court this Tuesday, June 11. And despite the months they had to find a lawyer, this window cleaner “did not have time” to take care of it. His request for dismissal was therefore rejected by the president, especially since behind him, in the front row, the municipal police officer had made the special trip.
This February 7, 2021, at the Tricoterie de Pamiers parking lot, municipal police officers ask Marco to better park his truck which is encroaching on the sidewalk. If the two agents persist for a long time, they end up fining the craftsman who, very angry, blurts out: “Long live the Islamic State, can’t wait for them to bomb you!” Comments captured by the pedestrian camera of the agent, seated behind him, who also criticizes him for having called him a “rabbit”.
If the window cleaner refutes the insult, he has no choice but to recognize this sentence which earned him the offense of advocating terrorism this Tuesday. “I explained to the agents that I had two knee prostheses, that I couldn’t carry weight, that I wouldn’t stay long but they didn’t care!” complains the defendant, before continuing : “On the other hand, things have been going on in Rue des Jacobins for 15 years, I hear much worse things every day and we do nothing. I am not known as someone who sends molotov cocktails!” Then he admits, it was a bad day for him.
“What should a craftsman do when a municipal agent does not respect prefectural decrees?”
However, this is not the first time that the latter has uttered insults towards an agent, with three convictions already under his belt. “The other time my road was cut off when the prefectural decree was not even in place yet,” he defends himself. “We, craftsmen and traders, try to get by every day. Nobody does not realize the economic terrorism in which we live. I am taken for a poor window cleaner. So what should a craftsman do when a municipal agent does not respect the prefectural decrees?
“Certainly not to insult him,” the president retorts. For his part, the deputy public prosecutor, Benoît de Saintignon denounces “unacceptable remarks” and “erroneous reasoning” on the part of the defendant who tries to pass the pill by evoking facts “even more serious than what ‘we blame him’. As a warning, he therefore requires 4 months in prison for him, with a simple suspended sentence.
One last time, at the helm, the craftsman pleads for his cause: “My partner has an illness and for five years I have been trying to treat her, which explains, in part, that I am not always on good days” . He will finally be sentenced to a citizenship course to be completed within six months, accompanied by 300 euros in moral damages for the victim and 700 euros in reimbursement of lawyer’s fees.
*The first name has been changed
