The funeral of Philippe Coopman will take place on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. The 22-year-old young man was killed last week in Grande-Synthe, in the North, during an ambush. Two minors, aged 14 and 15, were indicted and placed in pre-trial detention on Friday for “assassination”.
After the death of this man following blows to the head, the town near Dunkirk was plunged into great emotion. There are, at this stage of the investigation, reasons to believe that this is a “murder aggravated by the circumstance of ambush”, Charlotte Huet, Dunkirk prosecutor, explained at a press conference on Friday. .
White march of 1,500 people
The two indicted say they “set up a meeting” with Philippe Coopman via a dating website, posing as a minor, she explained, specifying that the motive for the attack was not not clearly established.
“Grande-Synthe has lost one of its children,” said the town’s mayor, Martial Beyaert, during a white march which brought together around 1,500 people that same Friday.
A few hours later, during the night from Friday to Saturday, a 15-year-old teenager, cousin of one of the two indicted, was attacked on the territory of the municipality. A retaliatory operation, in all likelihood, which pushed the councilor to “renew (his) call for calm” in the face of the “feeling of revenge of some”.
“No one is supposed to take the law into their own hands”
According to our information, the mother of this attacked teenager had been sheltering one of the suspects (her nephew) for some time since the latter’s father was in prison and his mother had been deprived of her custody rights.
“No one is supposed to take the law into their own hands,” insists the mayor in a press release. It is the time of contemplation and appeasement that must predominate. I solemnly ask the population not to give in to a certain form of fear, or even psychosis, which could take over in these difficult times. »