When you have 400 "friends" on Facebook, the posts become public and as a result the insults they contain too. This is what the Criminal Court of Béziers estimated this Thursday by condemning Michel Bousquet, a former elected member of the municipal team of Robert Ménard, for "public insults towards a person because of his origin or his membership in an ethnic group or a race ”. The defendant was sentenced to four months suspended prison sentence.
The case dates back to May 2020 when Michel Bousquet made a comment, vulgar and hateful, on the Parisian deputy Laetitia Avia (LREM), in particular on her skin color. During the hearing on July 16, Michel Bousquet defended himself at the bar to be racist. “I was clumsy, that's for sure, he admitted. These are unworthy words and I regret them. But when I wrote it, I was going through a difficult phase in my life. I was coming out of anesthesia. I only replied to a friend. My intention was not to attack its color, but its legal text ”.
Citizenship internship and damages
The ex-elected, who had to resign from his post and give up running for a new mandate as city councilor following this post, was not in court this Thursday to hear the deliberation. In addition to the suspended sentence, he will have to pay 4,000 euros in damages to Laetitia Avia, 2,000 euros to the civil party associations (SOS racism and the Licra), follow a citizenship course and have the judgment published at his expense in two daily newspapers.
Society
Béziers: An elected official suspected of having published a racist message towards the deputy Laetitia Avia
Justice
Béziers: An ex-elected suspected of having written a racist message towards MP Avia will be tried in July
- Justice
- Society