The year 2024 has not yet started and the judicial calendar is already particularly busy. Emblematic cases, attacks, accidents or political-financial affairs… A short tour of France of the most anticipated trials in the next twelve months.
January: The Théo affair, symbol of police violence
We often measure the impact of a case or news item by the way it is named in the media. The Théo affair, for example, resonates as a symbol of police violence. In February 2017, the young man, then aged 22, was injured during a simple identity check in Aulnay-sous-Bois. A blow with a telescopic baton to the anus caused a 10 cm wound and a section of the sphincter muscle. The affair sparked such a wave of indignation that François Hollande, then President of the Republic, went to his bedside.
If at the end of the investigation, the prosecution for rape was abandoned, three police officers were referred to the Seine-Saint-Denis assizes from January 9. The main accused, the one who delivered the baton blow, will have to answer in particular for “intentional violence resulting in mutilation or permanent disability”. He faces up to fifteen years in prison. The other two will appear for “aggravated willful violence”, offenses punishable by seven years of imprisonment.
January – February: The attacks in Trèbes and Strasbourg at the assizes
On March 23, 2018, Radouane Lakdim, a young common law offender on file due to his radicalization, committed the attacks in Trèbes and Carcassonne. His deadly adventure begins in Carcassonne: he steals a car, killing the 61-year-old passenger and injuring the 26-year-old driver. He then shot at a group of CRS near their barracks – injuring one of them – then rushed into a supermarket in Trèbes. Posing as a soldier of the Islamic State terrorist group, he kills a butcher and a customer. Gendarmerie lieutenant-colonel Arnaud Beltrame exchanges places with a hostage. He died from his injuries.
The trial will be held from January 22 to February 23, 2024: the terrorist was shot but seven people – six men and a woman – from his entourage are on trial but none for “complicity”. Five of them, suspected of having provided their assistance to Radouane Lakdim knowing of his radicalization, were dismissed for “criminal terrorist association”. Two men will be tried for related offenses.
This same year, 2018, was marked by another attack: that of the Strasbourg Christmas market, which left five people dead. The trial will open on February 29, as soon as that of Trèbes is completed. The terrorist, Chérif Chekatt, a 29-year-old repeat offender on file S, was killed 48 hours after the events, but four people were referred to court for criminal conspiracy in preparation for one or more crimes, without terrorist qualification. . They are suspected, to varying degrees, of having allowed the supply of the weapon used during the attack.
March: SNCF in the dock
Eleven dead and 43 injured. The toll is one of the heaviest in French railway history. On November 14, 2015, a TGV being tested on a section of a new line derailed in Eckwersheim (Bas-Rhin). This is the first time that such an accident has occurred since the launch of the TGV in 1981. The tragedy, however, goes almost unnoticed: it in fact took place the day after the attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis, in the middle of tracking down terrorists.
Eight years after the tragedy, the trial of the SNCF, two of its subsidiaries and three of their employees will open on March 4 before the Paris criminal court, for “injuries and involuntary homicide due to clumsiness, imprudence, negligence or breach to an obligation of security”. Rail experts considered that the tilting and then derailment of the train had been caused by “excessive speed” and late braking. The debates are expected to last eleven weeks.
September: Marine Le Pen accused of embezzlement of public funds
From September 30, Marine Le Pen, her father Jean-Marie Le Pen and 25 other people will appear before the Paris criminal court for embezzlement of public funds. They are suspected of having diverted European Union funds to pay assistants to MEPs actually working for the National Rally. Accusations that the party president completely refutes.
November: The assassination of Samuel Paty
After the trial of six teenagers in November 2023, eight adults will appear in November 2024, this time at the assizes, for their involvement in the assassination of Samuel Paty in October 2020. Among the accused, two friends of the assailant, Abdoullakh Anzorov, who was shot shortly after his act. They are suspected of having had precise knowledge of the terrorist project – they notably accompanied him to buy weapons and one of them transported him to the site of the attack – and will answer for complicity in assassination terrorist. Brahim Chnina, the father of the schoolgirl at the origin of the controversy over the courses taught by Samuel Paty, and the Islamist activist Abdelhakim Sefrioui, author of videos on social networks, will for their part be tried for criminal terrorist association.
At the end of the year: A trial for Cédric Jubillar?
Another media trial could open at the end of 2024: that of Cédric Jubillar. At the end of November, the attorney general confirmed his referral to an assize court for the murder of his wife, Delphine, in December 2020. Despite his constant denials, the Toulouse public prosecutor’s office considers that it has sufficient elements to designate him as the main suspicious. The dates are not yet known precisely.