Emmanuel Macron accused of surfing the emotion aroused by the anti-Semitic murder of Sarah Halimi

The reason on the one hand. The emotion of the other. And in the middle, Emmanuel Macron. Since Sunday evening and the publication
of his interview in the columns of Figaro, the President of the Republic is accused of surfing the emotion aroused by the anti-Semitic murder of Sarah Halimi to satisfy a section of his electorate.

One year before the presidential election, the head of state indicated that he wanted “as soon as possible” for a change in the law on criminal irresponsibility after the controversial decision rendered by the Court of Cassation in the case. Halimi. Last Wednesday, the highest court confirmed that the perpetrator, Kobili Traoré, should be considered criminally irresponsible and should not be tried, his discernment being abolished when he took action, one evening of April 2017.

Since then, the decision has aroused the misunderstanding of part of public opinion. 27 years old at the time of the facts, Kobili Traoré had beaten his neighbor, Sarah Halimi, before swinging her over the railing of the balcony of his Parisian apartment. In doing so, he had uttered anti-Semitic insults, notably shouting that he had killed “a demon”, “a sheitan”.

The issue of cannabis as a backdrop

The seven psychiatrists who examined him unanimously judged that the young man had acted under the influence of a “delusional puff”. If one expert considered that his discernment was “only altered”, all the others judged that it was “abolished” and that it was therefore not accessible to a criminal sanction. Problem: Kobili Traoré was a heavy cannabis user. Smoker of about fifteen joints a day for more than ten years.

And today, a part of the opinion wonders if its consumption of narcotics is not precisely at the origin of its “delirious puff”. If his voluntary addiction is not precisely what led him to kill. Emmanuel Macron, too, wonders. “Deciding to take narcotics and then become” like crazy “should not in my eyes remove your criminal responsibility”, he indeed indicated to the Figaro.

“It’s very simple: we don’t judge fools”

A little sentence that doesn’t fit in the judicial Landerneau. “This is typically the time when we need a public word that appeases and not a word that surfs on emotion”, tackle Katia Dubreuil, president of the Syndicat de la magistrature for whom the case recalls ” the policy of chin blows ”carried by Nicolas Sarkozy on the same subject 14 years ago,
during the double murder committed by an unbalanced man in Pau (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).

“It’s scandalous,” adds Céline Parisot, at the head of the Union Syndicale des Magistrates. He seizes on this subject to turn it into a political issue. Whereas in law, it is very simple: we do not judge the fools! “

A report on the subject commissioned … over a year ago

In a press release accompanying its decision, the Court of Cassation in fact explained that the case law on the matter was constant and that it was not possible to “distinguish the origin of the mental disorder which caused the loss of [à l’auteur des faits] awareness of his actions… ”

It remains to be seen whether it is therefore necessary to change the current law, as Emmanuel Macron claims. If the question is sensitive, it is not new. A little over a year ago, alerted precisely by the Halimi affair, Nicole Belloubet, the former Minister of Justice, had called for a report on this point to lawyers and former deputies Dominique Raimbourg and Philippe Houillon.

“The President of the Republic may not have known that we were going over it,” smiles Philippe Houillon today. In truth, the report should even have been released already except it was delayed due to the coronavirus. But the conclusions will be known by the end of April… ”They will be handed over to Eric Dupond-Moretti, the current Keeper of the Seals. To whom the President of the Republic has already asked to legislate …