Molotov cocktails thrown against a Gard gendarmerie: “It’s an expression of distress, period!”

L’attaque avait eu lieu à Saint-Ambroix, le 19 mars, en milieu de journée. MIDI LIBRE – ALEXIS BETHUNE

The events took place on March 19, in Saint-Ambroix, in the Cévennes of Gard. A man, aged 33, attacked the soldiers. Tried this Thursday, January 11, at the Alès court, he received three years in prison, two of which were suspended on probation.

"Attack! Attack!" Sunday March 19, around 1:15 p.m., the alert was given within the Saint-Ambroix gendarmerie, north of Gard. An individual is throwing Molotov cocktails at the brigade. The soldiers come out and order him to kneel; he complies and allows himself to be challenged. The investigation will report the throwing of five to six glass bottles filled with a flammable liquid and will note impacts on the ground, on the reception window, on the facade of the building, etc. And that the accused claimed that he had nothing more to lose. That he came with a blue box, placed on the ground near him, containing 26 other bottles also ready to be thrown.

A "wish to die and get shot"

After six months of pre-trial detention followed, in September, by placement under an electronic bracelet, the perpetrator of the attack was tried this Thursday, January 11, at the Alès courthouse. Aged 33, this resident of Bordezac listens to President Céline Simitian read the order for referral to the criminal court, saying that he would have called on the gendarmes to take up arms at a time when the country lived at the pace demonstrations against pension reform. "I don't know anymore; I was on morphine,” the thirty-year-old intervenes. At the time of the events, in addition to the tense social climate in France, he felt a feeling of revolt and despair, also due to personal difficulties and health problems that had been recurring for years. The president then returns to her “wish to die and be shot by the soldiers”, before highlighting the shock and trauma generated within the brigade. "Luckily, it was raining, which meant that the gendarmes' children weren't playing in the yard…", she explains.

The defendant: "It's very stupid to come to this"

The defendant explains that he is ’no longer in the same state as last year", that an illness was caused diagnosed in prison and adequate treatment followed. As for the reason for attacking the gendarmerie, he doesn't know. It’was the closest…" He says: "It’s very stupid to come to this. I can't go back, what's done is done…"

A "fear" now anchored within the brigade

The commander of the Saint-Ambroix brigade stands up: "Where we thought we were safe, now we feel exposed. It’s dramatic! Now, when we leave our house, we look… Now, concretely, we are afraid." The officer then salutes "the coolness" of his adjutant, first responder, who does not’ did not use his weapon and "avoided a tragedy". The thirty-year-old concedes that “being shot was the goal”, that his pain was “unbearable”. The president considers her explanations “not very satisfactory” and Marie-Lucie Godard, an assessor, explodes: “I am appalled by your speech. I have been listening to you for a quarter of an hour and you only talk about yourself. Not a word for the police and what you did. Today, with your speech, you scare me! There is no question…"

Three years in prison and a committal warrant are required

Sandrine Fabre, the deputy prosecutor, is on the same line: "He faces ten years and he’is not aware of what is happening there. He can return to detention this evening." Moreover, it requires three years, socio-judicial monitoring of five years and a committal warrant.

For the defense, "there is no aggressiveness in this gesture"

"I realize that we are going to stay on emotion, which is not the sense of justice", reacts Me Anaïs Farget, for the defense, after having heard this indictment, wondering if the Alès court is not trying, in view of ’such severity", to show itself "exemplary". The lawyer then recalls that none of the lit Molotov cocktails were thrown against the gendarmerie, that her client, with a clean record, had, in a particular social context, “expressed his anger” ;quot;, that he launched "a cry for help". For her, this act had all the appearance of a "suicide attempt" : "It’s the expression of distress, period! There is no aggressiveness in this gesture." With emotion, the council pleads for a suspended sentence. And, above all, to avoid returning to the cell.

A potentially flexible sentence

The court sentences the attacker to three years of detention, two of which are suspended on probation. The incarceration sentence he still has to serve is, therefore, potentially adaptable.

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