A 31-year-old man, sympathetic "yellow vest", was sentenced to eight months in prison suspended Monday for death threats on social networks against Secretary of State Marlene Schiappa and a policeman.
Clean record. The electrician with a clean criminal record, arrested Saturday morning at his home near Mantes-la-Jolie, Yvelines, was tried for messages sent to Facebook Thursday and Friday. He was sentenced for contempt, death threats and crimes against an elected official, death threat against a person in charge of public authority and use of narcotics - cannabis resin having was found at home.
Signaled by another "yellow vest". The investigation began with the report of another "yellow vest", whose brother, policeman, had received threats from this user. While he contacts him in turn to ask him to "calm down", the defendant formulated other threats against the police, on the eve of the act 9 of the movement Saturday.
Threats of death and rape. The investigators go back to her home and, on her phone, find traces of two messages addressed to the Secretary of State for Equality between women and men, sent on the same social network, threatening her with death and rape. The defendant, who says he took part in two Parisian demonstrations of "yellow vests", said he copied and pasted one of the messages from a Facebook group that encouraged him to send to Marlene Schiappa, claiming to ignore while she was a member of the government. "I regret it, I will never again in my life," he said, adding, "When the police read my messages, I was shocked by their violence."
Schiappa, target of repeated threats. "There are more and more elected officials or members of the government who are threatened, intimidated," said the prosecutor, who had requested three months suspended. "Contestation is a right, but it can not be exercised through threats, insults, outrages," he added. These threats, "this is not a debate, it is not freedom of expression," also said Eric Morain for the civil party, saying that Marlene Schiappa is "the one who suffers the most cyber-harassment to the government, for months and months ".
"You said 'dismaying', I add 'lamentable' and (the defendant) think so too," said defense lawyer Sylvie Sezikeye, addressing the president of the court. "No weapon" was found at home, she said however, evoking "someone fragile" who "let themselves be dragged".