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CRS during a demonstration against the pension reform in Paris on December 5, 2019. REUTERS / Gonzalo Fuentes

The CRS which had been filmed throwing a pavement towards demonstrators during the mobilization of May 1 in Paris was sentenced to two months in prison suspended.

The judgment was eagerly awaited . It is indeed the first trial for “ willful violence by a person holding public authority ” since the beginning of the “yellow vests” movement , even if the case was paradoxically not emblematic of the police violence denounced, the pavement having made no victim.

A month ago, the presiding judge said, " It will be a difficult decision. If we condemn, some will accuse us of saying that the CRS must be thrashed without reacting; and if not, that justice necessarily covers the police. "

Extenuating circumstances

A difficulty illustrated by a mixed judgment. The throwing of the pavement, " a gesture of exasperation, panic or reprisals ", according to the president, is indeed an act of illegitimate violence because it was not " absolutely necessary ".

However, the court accepted several extenuating circumstances, including the absence of a victim, the context of great violence, the impeccable service of the CRS and the shock he had experienced a little earlier when he saw his superior seriously injured.

His suspended sentence of two months in prison will therefore not be entered in his criminal record and he will be able to continue practicing. Grégory Joron of the Union-SGP union to which the police officer is affiliated, does not understand.

The synidcat Unity-SGP says its incomprehension

" It was recognized that they were in a rain of projectiles, that it was very complicated and that they lacked means," maintains Grégory Joron. It is a company that had been hooked several times during the day, it was well recontextualized. Except that at the end of the line, we basically explain that it would have been better to hide behind an electrical cabinet or to finally take a cobblestone too. Except that the protection that my colleagues have, it does not protect everything. This company could see it when its captain found himself with a head trauma and the helmet open. That is why we do not understand. The signal is quite cloudy . "

The convicted CRS has not yet decided whether to appeal.