In court on Thursday, Maud Pouyé and Anouk Aubert hope to obtain “a form of recognition”. The one that the managers of a café-bookstore in Nice did not have at the time. “No one has taken a public position to say that this action, what happened that day, was not possible. We experienced it as an act of censorship, as an attack on freedom of expression and that is what it is all about”.
On December 9, the police, present in large numbers in Nice to secure a trip by the Minister of the Interior to the former Saint-Roch hospital, had done everything to hide slogans against sexual and gender-based violence affixed on the windows of the couple’s business, open just opposite. If these messages showed a certain hostility towards Gérald Darmanin, targeted by a charge of rape whose dismissal was confirmed on appeal, they were “neither insulting nor defamatory”, affirms Maud Pouyé. She and her companion summon the ministry and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes before the administrative court of Nice. They hope to have the illegality of this action recognized.
“Sophie we believe you”
Journalist Hélène Devynck, one of the PPDA accusers, joined the proceedings of two women aged 34 and 38, feminists but “members of no militant association”. “On December 6, we received her for a signing of her book Impunitywho rightly denounces the impunity of powerful men, explains Maud Pouyé, questioned by 20 minutes. When we learned that Darmanin was coming three days later, we wanted to organize something. »
They become attached to a collective of gluers. Early, on the morning of the 9th, before the store opens to the public, and with the blessing of the managers, they go into action. “We see you as rapists, we believe you as victims”, “who sows impunity reaps anger” are displayed in large black letters. A third message, “Sophie we believe you”, even makes direct reference to Sophie Patterson-Spatz, the accuser of Gérald Darmanin who now wants to appeal to the Court of Cassation.
“You see the problem? »
The managers and the activists go away for an hour or two. On their return, while the security device was deployed in the district, where the minister must detail the project of a hotel of the shared police, the posters taped outside were torn off. The others, plastered from the inside, are hidden by large black panels cobbled together on the floor by members of the police.
“They said to us, ‘Do you see the problem?’ We asked if it was illegal and there was no response. There were no verbalizations either, ”explains Maud Pouyé again. Les Parleuses, the name of their café-bookstore opened five years ago, feel like they have been gagged. Without reason. “It’s the word of women that we hide and it’s with power that we come to hide that”, annoys the young woman.
Was the action justified? The same day, no authority had been able to provide any answers. The email sent on Tuesday by 20 minutes at Place Beauvau finally obtained one (laconic) from the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes. “The Ministry of the Interior and Overseas has produced a brief to ensure the defense of the interests of the State in this dispute that will be judged by the administrative court” and will have “no comment to make pending the judgment”, we explain. According to our information, a ministry official would be specially dispatched to represent him at the hearing on Thursday.
“The susceptibility of Gérald Darmanin”
For the lawyer of the three plaintiffs on the other hand, it is clear, “we are at the heart of the abuse of power”. “The reasons for obstructing freedom of expression are exceptional and we are not at all in this context. These collages did not in any way represent a disturbance of public order as can be argued, supports Me Lorraine Questiaux. And if, as we think, it is only a question of the susceptibility of Gérald Darmanin, we are outside any legal framework. »
“With this first summary provision procedure, we want to have a debate and, we hope, the beginning of an answer on who is at the origin of this fault which also consisted in diverting the public force from its object. Did the order come from the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes or directly from Gérald Darmanin? In both cases, by coming to censor this militant action in a virile way, we oppose in a vexatious way a fight, that against sexist and sexual violence, which is nevertheless the great cause of the quinquennium. It’s almost an abyss. And we are also damaging the reputation of the bookstore and of Madame Devynck, whose book was in the window. And whose title of the book “Impunity”, displayed in large letters, was camouflaged by these black veil panels. A second legal action, on the merits, is also underway.