Scandal in New Caledonia after a revelation on Wednesday from

Médiapart

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The news site reports that Eric Steiger, appointed commander of the French gendarmerie on July 8, was sentenced in 2020 for physical and psychological violence against his wife.

The announcement immediately sparked outrage among several leaders who do not intend to stop there.

"I pointed out this night to the highest authorities of the State that this function was incompatible with this type of offense and that the decision had to be taken as soon as possible to send this colonel back to France," Sonia Backès wrote Thursday, president of the southern province where Nouméa is located, on her Facebook page.

The elected non-independence activist adds that "in a country where 22% of women are victims of violence, (...) the decision to change the head of the gendarmerie in New Caledonia should not suffer from hesitation".

Reminder of Darmanin's speech

In a press release, deputies Philippe Gomes and Philippe Dunoyer, and Senator Gérard Poadja, all members of the center-right Calédonie Ensemble party, considered that this conviction “disqualified Colonel Eric Steiger” and requested his “replacement”. They quoted the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, who recently affirmed that "any gendarme convicted of domestic violence should no longer be in contact with the public" and that "the treatment of this violence would henceforth be a priority for the police and gendarmes everywhere in France ”.

The president of the Rassemblement-LR and former president of the government, Thierry Santa, for his part considered "that no depositary of public authority can continue to exercise his functions when he is guilty of such acts".

Alluding to the third referendum on independence, which will be held on December 12, the separatists of the FLNKS have them "demanded the immediate replacement of the number one of the gendarmerie which could not embody the righteousness and the commitment of the exercise of the competences. on the spot, which to this day is still in the hands of the State ”.

Locked against a cupboard with my head violently twisted

This 48-year-old colonel was sentenced at first instance in February 2020 to a six-month suspended prison sentence for violence committed between November 2017 and June 2018, before seeing his sentence reduced on appeal to a fine of 6,000 euros by the court of call from Paris, the investigation site reported.

The site specifies that the wife of Eric Steiger had, in her complaint filed in early June 2018, explained to have been blocked against a cupboard with her head violently twisted and to have been insulted "of illiterate, dirt or big bitch".

The couple's eldest daughter is said to have intervened several times to help her mother.

Eric Steiger arrived in New Caledonia in August 2020 as second in command of the gendarmerie before being promoted.

Contacted, the gendarmerie in New Caledonia said there would be "no reaction or comment".

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  • Controversy

  • Conviction

  • Gendarme

  • Violence against women

  • Domestic violence

  • Society

  • New Caledonia