A 26-year-old man was sentenced to prison on Friday in Libourne for the assault last week of the mayor of a village in Gironde, beaten after intervening to put an end to a nightly noise, we learned from judicial source. The man, arrested on Wednesday, was not placed under a committal warrant at the end of the hearing for immediate appearance in the court of Libourne, but was sentenced to 12 months in prison, six of which were accompanied by a probationary suspension , said the prosecution. His sentence is therefore likely to be amended.
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Deputy prosecutor Sylvie Guedes had required 18 months in prison, five of which were suspended, but had required a warrant of committal. The defendant, member of the community of Travelers and "not particularly" known to justice, presented himself to the gendarmerie on Wednesday, eight days after the facts, after a first arrest of a minor. The minor's custody has since been lifted.
The mayor's emotion
The aggressor was tried for aggravated violence with a total interruption of work of more than 8 days, with aggravating circumstances his manifest state of drunkenness, and the quality of person depositary of the public authority of the mayor. The chosen one, Philippe Bécheau, intervened on August 4 in his village of Saint-Philippe d'Aiguille (400 inhabitants), around 10:30 p.m., after neighbors complained that a group of people was listening to music that was too loud on the village square. The city councilor, 58 years old, posing as mayor, had asked them to lower the volume, then, feeling the situation turned badly in the face of alcoholic people, had left but had fallen. A man had hit him then, and the group fled.
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At the hearing, the defendant, unemployed and father of two children, "took refuge behind amnesia due to massive alcoholism" on the evening of the facts, regretted the prosecution. The mayor, moved, was able to say how he was "shaken" by the aggression. He qualified with AFP the sentence of "fair and proportionate", because according to him "they will not let go" his attacker, between obligation of care and probationary suspension.
"Today justice has managed the consequences of an aggression, but the most important thing is to manage the causes, we must find means, with education at school, parents, civic education ... If we don't tackle the causes, it's not going to stop, "he said. The attacker was also sentenced to 4,000 euros in damages to the mayor, for physical and moral damage. He was also prohibited from going to Saint-Philippe d'Aiguille, and from coming into contact with the mayor.
A national condemnation
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, Prime Minister Jean Castex, condemned the aggression of Mr. Bécheau, the head of government denouncing "unacceptable" violence. After this aggression and then two days later that of another elected representative in La Manche, the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) recalled that "233 elected officials have already suffered an act of violence" in 2020, its vice-president Agnès Le Brun deploring that the mayors feel lonely in the face of a penal response "not at the rendezvous".
The defendant's lawyer, Pierre Blazy, regretted that because of this context, the hearing tried to "put the mayors under attack in general on trial". He pleaded the particular case of a "serious act" but by a "poor devil" from a "very disadvantaged" background, and who was "completely drunk". He praised the absence of a committal warrant, which he said was reserved "for people who really need to know about prison".