The teenager is accused of stabbing his girlfriend, Emma, several times in 2022, when they were 14 years old. This Monday, the Mâcon children’s court began its trial, behind closed doors. It will be held until Wednesday. It will be about “understanding the incomprehensible, the inconceivable,” said Patrick Uzan, lawyer for Emma’s parents.
On June 9, 2022 in the early morning in Clessé (Saône-et-Loire), a typical wine-growing village of Southern Burgundy, the body of the young girl was discovered on the public road near her former primary school. The remains of the teenager, a 4th grade student, showed numerous wounds and a knife still stuck in her neck.
A knife hidden “in his sleeve”
The next day, Emma’s boyfriend was arrested at the Lugny college, a nearby village where the two teenagers attended school. The teenager quickly admitted that, during a nighttime meeting, he had struck him “three times on the neck” with a knife hidden until then “in his sleeve”, the Mâcon prosecutor then explained, Eric Jallet.
Emma had “tried to flee, but the suspect [avait] tried to strangle him” before carrying out further stabbings, he added. Without a criminal record, the suspect had “a desire to kill”, according to the hearings. The psychiatric examination concluded that there was “a significant impairment of discernment” but without abolition, which makes his trial possible.
The mental health of the defendant in question
As a minor, he risks a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for murder. “The court will have to look into the question of discernment,” recognizes Amélie Gemma, lawyer for the young defendant. The care he may have received could also be the subject of debate.
As soon as the teenager was arrested, the question arose as to whether his mental disorders were known and whether everything had been done to prevent his committing the act. According to Me Uzan, “little Emma had a crush, her first emotion, and, despite her very young age, she understood that he was not doing well and she wanted to help him”. In 2022, the number of femicides stood at 118, four fewer than in 2021, according to the latest report from the Ministry of the Interior, published in September.