Back on feminicide that upsets France

On July 2, 2021, Sandra Pla was found mortally stabbed at her home. A few moments later, his ex-companion was arrested. He is indicted for “homicide on a spouse”. His trial takes place from January 29 to 31, 2025 at the Gironde Assizes, he was tried for assassination on the former spouse. The victim’s family attacked the state for heavy mistakes.

This Friday, July 2, 2021, Sandra returns home, in the Saint-Augustin district of Bordeaux, after having deposited her little daughter at school. The neighbors hear cries of woman from her apartment, they alert the police. The police enter around 10 a.m. into her home and discover Sandra Pla, covered with blood. The victim is larded with stab wounds carried in the face and in the upper one, the young woman succumbed to her injuries.
Immediately, the suspicions are on the former companion of Sandra Pla, Mickael Falou, reported several times by the young mother to the police for acts of harassment and threats.

► Read also. “We saw the drama coming.” Sandra Pla’s family, killed by her ex-spouse, files a complaint against the State

The man is found at home in Mérignac, a neighboring town, consuming alcohol and cannabis. During his police custody, Mickael Falou admits to having hidden from 4:30 am in a lean -to and having spent the night there to confront the young woman in the morning. He would then have seen his ex-partner and his daughter go to school, then would have waited for the return of the young mother alone.
It was at 8:45 a.m. that it all started. According to him, he would have waited for the young woman to open the door to throw herself on her and push her inside the accommodation in order, he says “to have an explanation with her“.

The victim would then have escaped his embrace to rush into the kitchen and grab a knife to threaten him. He would then have managed to master it by placing it on the ground, then would in turn have seized the knife. To the police, he also tells that in a caliphon on her, he would have “awake with a black hole“To realize, a few minutes later, that he was covered with blood, just like the victim. According to the autopsy report, the victim died following the carotid section. She received more About twenty stab wounds and especially in the head and neck.

Two months after the stir of the French, following the death of Chahinez in Mérignac, the death of Sandra Pla is a new female affair which raises many questions. Even today, “Mickael Falou denies having premeditated his gesture”explain his two lawyers, Maître Anais Divot and Maître Elena Badescu. Sandra’s family plays a completely different conviction.

The most important thing for the civil party is the veracity of the facts and that he is condemned for what he has committed. My clients, indeed, are convinced that it was premeditated.

Elsa Crozatier

Civil parties lawyer

It is however this premeditation which will be at the heart of the debates of this trial: the charges having been reclassified as crime in assassination, as the facts, re -studied during the reconstruction in 2023, tend to prove that Mickael Falou had place an action plan.

Mickaël Falou does not hide his anger from the investigators. They report that he clearly expresses “His anger vis-à-vis his ex-partner, whom he accuses of having lied several times by attributing facts that he considers to have never committed such as domestic violence and a vehicle theft. “

Likewise, this resentment is also turned towards the judicial institution which “would have deprived him of his daughter “. Because the family judge, after multiple reports made by Sandra PLA, decided, on May 15, 2021, to entrust the exclusive guard of the four -year -old child to the mother. Mickael Falou, meanwhile, has a right of visit to the meeting point meeting, twice two hours a month.

This anger would have reached its climax after a surrender consecutive to a complaint filed by the victim on June 29, a few days before the feminicide. Exit from police custody, the ex-companion, is placed under judicial supervision and prohibited from any contact with the victim.

On November 16, 2021, four months after the death of Sandra Pla, Mickael Falou was tried by the Bordeaux Criminal Court for harassment and threats to his ex-partner, until the fatal day of July 2, 2021.

During this trial, the young woman’s ordeal materialized: between January 3 and June 18, 2021, Mickaël Falou spent 67 calls and sent 217 SMS to the young woman, reports the third chamber of the Criminal Court of Criminal Court Bordeaux. “I was very disturbed by the situation I was living”declares the accused at the helm. Before testifying: “We had problems in our couple, but she never gave me any explanations.”

I wanted to understand how we got there, that was the purpose of my messages.

Mickael spoke

Indicted for the assassination of Sandra Pla

On January 18, 2022, he was sentenced to 6 months in prison and to pay 1,500 euros to the civil party under moral damage. Sandra Pla, she has already died for six months.

It was at the time of the announcement of the separation made by Sandra Pla to Mickael Fallou in December 2020, that the latter became more and more violent. First to himself, then he begins to terrorize the young woman. A first complaint on January 6, 2021 reports her concern for her and for her child, aged 4 at the time. And in this rise in tension, Sandra plans a letter to the prosecutor on March 30, 2021. A letter which makes it possible to revive legal action: the first complaint was classified without follow -up and her request for a protective order from the JAF ( Judge for family affairs) in February, had been rejected.
A neighbor testifies, after the death of Sandra Pla, having placed a handrail against Mickael Falou as his presence was heavy and permanent, in order to denounce the facts of harassment of which the mother was victim.

This is why, in March 2024, three years after the drama, his family filed a complaint against the state for inaction and heavy faults.

But Maître Elsa Crozatier, lawyer for the civil party, insists on making the distinction between this action against the state and that concerning Mickael Falou: “These are two completely different things, she recalls. Il Mickael Falou must assume his faults, assumes his actions, assumes what he did during any this period and which ultimately led to this assassination “.

Mickael Fallou faces life imprisonment for assassination on a spouse.