After three days of debates before the Hérault Assize Court, Mohamed Kamel, 33, was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, two-thirds of which were secured, for having slit the throat of ‘Alain Francon. The author and director, whose rich career has been hailed by three “Molières”, the equivalent of the Césars in the world of theater, had been attacked for free while he was strolling in a street in the city center of Montpellier, March 17, 2021.
His attacker had just been expelled from the prefecture, where he had gone to extend his residence permit, because he had not made an appointment. Out of frustration, he had attacked the artist, completely at random, and had cut his neck with a box cutter, causing a six-inch deep wound that had grazed the carotid artery.
At the statement of the verdict, Mohamed Kamel insults the president
The intervention of passers-by and a pharmacist who had tried to limit his blood loss as much as possible, in particular thanks to the action of American dressings, had saved his life.
In front of the assizes, Mohamed Kamel, an Algerian who arrived in France at 11, who spent part of his life in prison, was absent. But when the verdict was announced, he insulted the president who expelled him from the room. The court did not accept the mental alteration suggested by the psychiatric expert. Luc Abratkiewicz, the artist’s lawyer, evokes “a sentence which corresponds to the seriousness of the facts and the dangerousness of Mr. Kamel. »