“When it starts to heat up, I freak out and I spin.” Yann, a 44-year-old waiter, watches only from afar pass, then degenerate, the processions of demonstrators against the pension reform in Toulouse. They bring up too many bad memories, too many nightmarish flashes. They bring it back to January 19, 2019, to act 10 of the “Yellow Vests”. When ? “Leaving work”, he found himself with a small group chased by “CRS and caught up by police on motorcycles”. Then when a rain of baton blows fell on him, he fainted and woke up spitting out his teeth, “fractured, broken, expelled”. Eleven teeth in all. With hindsight, the forty-year-old can hammer it home: “Teeth are a social passport”. And by losing his, he took a ticket to hell.
His health insurance didn’t work. ” I lost my job. I no longer left my house”… With his “big hole in his mouth”, he no longer dared to smile. The withdrawal from the world lasted a year and a half, “doing nothing at all”, remembers the one who has become a server again today thanks to temporary dental equipment. The estimate for bone grafts in the gums and multiple implants, established by a dentist moved by his case, amounts to 17,000 euros.
“A torn off hand or testicle”
Yann can count on an imminent advance of 12,000 euros because he has obtained assistance from the Guarantee Fund for victims of acts of terrorism and other offenses (FGTI). He sees the end of the tunnel, manages to speak modestly about what happened to him. And if he can do it, it’s also because in the worst moments, he found himself “a psychological crutch”, without which he doesn’t know “not what would have happened”. It is the association of Mutilated for Example, a collective of 25 people “blinded, toothless with a hand or a testicle torn off”. “The only association that does not want new members”, only half jokes Yvan, whose cell phone is experiencing a resurgence of calls in favor of the social movement. It’s a coincidence, they did not know that it would be so boiling topical, but the collective’s annual march takes place this Sunday, April 9 in Toulouse. To make the voices of those injured in the “Yellow Vests” episode and other subsequent clashes heard, such as those of the G7 in Biarritz in August 2019.
David, a 35-year-old Toulousain, who took “a grenade” in the face in Bordeaux, on January 5, 2019, during act 8, estimates at “a thousand” these victims confined to anonymity, who preferred forget rather than file a complaint or start a procedure. “Go directly to his executioner, it’s still complicated,” says Yvan. This colossus, with a big, well-trimmed beard, took a shot from LBD in the corner of his eye on December 29, 2018 in Montpellier. “GJ” always convinced, street medic now, he didn’t leave the episode behind him. He runs demonstrations throughout the region. David, for his part, returned to his job in computer security a long time ago.
The wounds of the two “mutilated” comrades are no longer visible. At least not physically. But they share their after-effects: “A loss of fluidity in breathing” for David after two nose operations that he had “comma” and still throbbing neck pain; “memory lapses, loss of sense of direction”, headaches for Yvan who is “no longer under medical supervision”.
“Ban Mutilating Weapons”
They also have in common a report to the IGPN, via its website, which remained a dead letter. Yvan believes he knows, via a former lawyer, that his has been filed. David never heard back. In general, they denounce the “lack of support and guidance”. “I didn’t know that for bodily injury it was better to go civil than criminal”, says David, who let his possibility of obtaining legal aid become time-barred for lack of information and recently seized the administrative court.
Yvan, who has not left his anger, follows the procedures closely. Between their friend Dylan, who was compensated with 60,000 euros for having lost an eye, but whose court nevertheless considered that he was responsible for a third of what had happened to him, and the “1,000 euros fine with suris” inflicted on the policeman who injured another member in Biarritz with his LBD, he “hallucinates”.
Sunday, the Mutilé.es pour l’Exemple want to bring the debate to the legal field. “We want recognition of our status as victims of the state so that justice can be done”, thunders Yvan and “the creation of a compensation fund”, of a support structure. “We also demand the banning of all mutilating weapons,” continues David. Lots of other countries are doing better than us in policing. We must stop the bleeding! “. Once is not custom, Sunday Yann, will leave in demonstration. But surrounded by his crutches.