The Paris Criminal Court on Thursday cleared two men accused of having "usurped the identity" of candidate Emmanuel Macron a few days of the 2017 presidential elections in emails titled "10 good reasons not to vote for me".
For the court, readers of this email "can not ignore that this is not a real message signed by the candidate, but a parody, emanating from political opponents who call not to vote for Emmanuel Macron ". Thus, "the facts in question do not correspond to the usurpation of the identity of a third party, the content of the words being manifestly incompatible with the desire to impersonate Emmanuel Macron", according to the judgment consulted by AFP.
The email invited to sign a petition on a site anti-Macron
On April 21, 2017, two days before the first round of the presidential election, these e-mails signed "Emmanuel" had reached a hundred recipients via the address "emmanuel.macron.enmarche@gmail.com". The same email was subsequently sent back from two anonymized addresses to members of the Macron candidate's team, as well as to journalists.
The email invited to sign a petition entitled "Emmanuel Macron, where is your heritage?" on an anti-Macron website and anti-immigration, "Damocles".
One of the defendants was fighting for François Fillon
The applicant had lodged a complaint, the prosecution had opened an investigation in the wake and after extensive investigations, the two men had been summoned to appear in the Criminal Court. One of the defendants was then fighting for François Fillon, LR candidate in the presidential election, and also worked in a conservative association.
He was prosecuted for asking a comrade and subordinate to create the disputed e-mail address, providing him with the text and the corresponding mailing list, and then rebroadcast the e-mail. Before the court, he had evoked in March e-mails "hair scratch" intended to respond by humor to unsolicited telephone campaigns and automatic then practiced the candidate Macron.
The defense denounced "the incredible energy deployed by the prosecution" and its speed to trigger the investigation. "All this to find the authors of what is obviously a political hoax, a good or a bad joke," said Margot Bailly, a lawyer of one of the defendants.
The Head of State was not a civil party nor represented at the hearing.