Several thousand people gathered in Marseille on Sunday to celebrate the Carnival of the Plain. – Christophe SIMON / AFP
- Three days after the Carnival of the Plain, in Marseille, which sparked a media outcry for the non-respect of barrier gestures, the court tried five people in immediate appearance.
- The court was lenient in imposing community service and suspended sentences.
After the media outcry, the time for justice. Three days after the Carnival of the Plain, the Marseille Criminal Court tried five people in immediate appearance on Wednesday. Far from the media surge, on the risks taken by the participants, which arose after a tweet from the Bouches-du-Rhône police headquarters on Sunday.
The public prosecutor, Gaëlle Ortiz, did try to go into this field: “Are you aware that there may be a cluster in Marseille? “. By evoking at the same time a “secret gathering for an unauthorized carnival”, “a demonstration”, “rioters” when it was necessary to recall “the context”. If the representative of the public prosecutor requested heavy sentences, often with imprisonment for throwing projectiles or the burning of street furniture, the president of the court, Paule Colombani, was more lenient.
Dance around a fire
Marco, a 28-year-old Italian who spends half a year in France on seasonal contracts, was released after the court suspected him of throwing stones at the police in Place Jean- Jaurès. What he denied. “How could they say it was me?” I don’t know how, with all this smoke, there were hundreds of people dressed like me, in masks and black, disguised for the carnival. A policeman showed me a photo, and it was not me, ”explained the young man who had come to celebrate the carnival with friends. His lawyer had the “pious wish to disregard the context and to focus only on the facts”.
Etienne and Victor were arrested near the rue Saint-Savournin, “dancing around a fire”. Each admits having set fire to “a pile of rubbish” and a dumpster, but not four as the court accuses them of. Etienne came from Briançon to celebrate carnival with friends, while he has been looking for work since obtaining his master’s degree in geography. “I was in the excitement, in the excitement, there were fires everywhere. I had been drinking all day and it had been a long time since I had partied. I became aware of the stupidity that I did, it was stupid and unconscious, ”he admitted.
Militants?
Victor met Etienne during the carnival, he who came from the Creuse to party with friends he “lost very early”. The first was in pre-trial detention, because of a first conviction for having been arrested with two knives. Me Bruno, lawyer of Aix-Marseille Métropole who joined as a civil party for the destruction of the garbage cans, described them as “militants”. The two young men reaffirmed that they had heard from friends “who had seen the posters in the streets”, and had come to party. Far from activism, then. The court sentenced Etienne to a three-month suspended prison sentence, and Victor to 90 hours of community service to avoid revocation of a first suspended sentence. They were ordered to compensate the metropolis up to 846 euros, jointly and severally.
Léo, 32, came from Aveyron to participate in his 10th carnival of the Plain, was disguised as Pétassou “a traditional Occitan costume made of lots of pieces of fabric”. He is accused of throwing a can on the police, of the rebellion, and of having evaded biological samples. “I did not even struggle, two or three agents rushed at me and I said to them ‘You are the strongest, I let myself be.’ I was humiliated during the arrest. I did not throw a bottle and I do not know how the police recognized me in the dark, and with lots of people disguised as Pétassou, ”he said. The court acquitted him for the throwing of projectiles but sentenced him to four months in prison suspended for the rebellion and two months suspended for evading the levy.
Laurent, 52, is ultimately the only Marseillais to have been tried. He admits having thrown a bottle in the direction of the police. “I was walking on the Old Port with a friend when we joined the carnival on the Canebière. There were tear gas very quickly and I escaped by throwing my bottle in their direction, but without ever wanting to harm them “, explained this former aeronautical technician, unemployed for almost two years and” in a precarious situation “. The court sentenced him to a six-month suspension with an obligation of care and training.