He will be tried on October 1 for refusing to submit to a police check. A Northerner from the “sovereign citizens” movement must appear in court in the North, we learned this Monday from the Dunkirk public prosecutor’s office. He argued, during this inspection, that French laws did not concern him.
The man, aged 52, is accused of refusing to submit to vehicle and driver checks, blood alcohol and drug use tests, lack of insurance and intentional violence against a soldier. the gendarmerie without incapacity. For these offenses, he faces up to five years of imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
“The Highway Code is only a code, not a law”
“He claimed that France was a company whose laws only had the value of “internal regulations” to which he would not be subject,” explains the Dunkirk prosecutor, Charlotte Huet, in a press release.
In the video of the check, the man and his partner explain that they no longer belong “to the République Française company, which has been a company since 1947” and that “the Highway Code is only a code , not a law.” “We do not contract” with the State, adds the man. “I no longer belong to the French Republic Presidency company.”
After several minutes of tense exchanges, the police ended up breaking the window of the vehicle to arrest the couple, according to the video.
Appearing in the 1970s in the United States, “the ‘sovereign citizens’ movement finds its roots in an anti-federal state discourse and has connections with the survivalist movement”, explains the specialist in online extremism, Tristan Mendès France.