Helping victims, controlled madmen: eight gendarmes decorated for their acts of bravery during a ceremony in Montpellier

Eight gendarmes were awarded medals during this ceremony at the Lepic barracks. – GENDARMERIE DE L'HERAULT

The courage and composure of the soldiers during their interventions was praised. – GENDARMERIE DE L'HERAULT

Des gendarmes des brigades de Saint-Gély-du-Fesc, Lunel et La Grande-Motte, ont été distingués. – GENDARMERIE DE L'HERAULT

The traditional ceremony paying tribute to the heroes of the gendarmerie was held recently at the Lepic barracks in Montpellier. Eight soldiers, who distinguished themselves by their courage over the past year, were distinguished. 

Recently, the ceremony of homage to the heroes of the gendarmerie took place at the Lepic barracks in Montpellier, in the presence of prefect François-Xavier Lauch and General Thomas Deprecq, commanding the departmental gendarmerie group of Hérault. Each year, soldiers who died in the exercise of their mission are honored, as well as gendarmes in the ranks, who distinguished themselves through acts of bravery.

An individual armed with a knife facing them

This year, there were eight of them to be decorated and rewarded, including gendarme David H. who, on May 30, 2023, in Corbonod in Ain, had faced, with two other soldiers , to an individual armed with a knife. While he touched one of his colleagues and dangerously approached the other, he used his weapon to disarm and question him.

Constable Adrien H. of the Saint-Gély-du-Fesc brigade, was also distinguished for his commitment, on June 27, 2023, when reporting a gunshot in Juvignac. On site, he came to the aid of the victim, injured in one hand and the abdomen, applying a tourniquet and keeping the victim conscious until help arrived.< /p>

Two gendarmes jump into the water to save a man from drowning

Another act of courage distinguished during this ceremony, that of the chief quartermaster Léna C. and constable Fabrice C., of the La Grande-Motte brigade. On October 12, 2023, they saved a person who was trying to commit suicide by drowning. Both had thrown themselves into the water to bring the victim back to shore and provide first aid. 

On October 18, 2023, it was deputy gendarme Eliott L., from the Lunel brigade, who, with a comrade, brought to safety a driver, stranded with his car on a road flooded. After numerous efforts, they managed to push the vehicle and extract its occupant.  

He threatens his family with a gun

Finally, the ceremony saluted the merit of the head quartermaster Ludivine C., the gendarme  Yohan F. and chief brigadier Maxence L., of the Lunel brigade, intervened in a family dispute on October 29, 2023. A man armed with a revolver threatened to kill his partner and their three children, then to suicide. He fired at the gendarmes, who returned fire, wounding the individual. The police then took charge of the family.