The court reminded Wednesday that the law must be respected everywhere, even on social networks. A 36-year-old man was sentenced to 12 months in prison in Béziers, in Hérault, for having threatened to kill Emmanuel Macron on TikTok.
Before the criminal court, this man born in Brazil and adopted at four years old by “rich French people” who allegedly “beat him throughout (his) childhood” explained that he had acted out of “anger at the things that happened.” pass into France and who do not go”.
Words that he “regrets greatly”
This employee in a garden center, however, assured that he had “no intention” of actually killing the president: “I focused on TikTok without really measuring my words, which I regret enormously,” added abruptly. barely audible voice of this man with a face covered in tattoos, including a gun on his left temple.
He had posted two videos hostile to the head of state, viewed more than 30,000 times. For example, he filmed himself saying: “I am ready to light it if someone is ready to finance me to see it dead and the money will be redistributed to all the French!!! » (sic).
Questioned by the gendarmes after a report on Pharos, which allows illicit content to be notified online, he was placed under judicial supervision on February 15. Three days later, he posted new messages on TikTok, stating in particular that “the hunt for Macronists is on!!! “.
His cell phone confiscated
“You know that things can change, that’s called democracy. When we do not agree with someone, we can vote for someone else, but we cannot say that we want to remove them,” President Christophe Rolland pointed out to him. “There is perhaps a glimmer of hope with (the president of the RN, Jordan) Bardella”, if “France leaves Europe”, also declared the defendant, in response to a question from his lawyer , Gaucelm Desbruères. “We are faced with a poor worker, not particularly educated, who has targeted the president, who in his eyes is responsible for his ills. He adopted the populist discourse, he wants to be a sort of whistleblower, like a “Yellow Vest”,” this lawyer also argued.
Tried for “death threats against an elected official”, he faced the maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros. The prosecutor had requested 12 months in prison, six of which were suspended. “Get help,” the judge told him, who forced him to seek treatment and ordered the confiscation of his cell phone.