Cécile Bourgeon and her former companion Berkane Makhlouf are on appeal until December 16 before the Assises du Rhône for the death of Fiona.
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Zziig / AFP
Cécile Bourgeon, Fiona's mother, and her former companion Berkane Makhlouf have been on trial since last week before the Rhône assizes for the child's death.
From the start, the mother has displayed an astonishing indifference when it comes to talking about her little girl.
She maintains that she did not kill her.
Judged for a week in appeal before the assizes of the Rhône for the death of her little daughter Fiona, Cécile Bourgeon displays an astonishing and disturbing indifference.
Wrapped up in her thick black hooded coat that she never takes off, the young woman made the choice, from the beginning, to turn her back on her co-accused Berkane Makhlouf.
To also turn your back on the public in order to avoid glances.
Prostrate and alone in front of the jurors.
The days go by but not a trace of tears on the cheeks, not a sob in the voice.
Except when it comes to denouncing the attitude of the photographers against whom she was angry Thursday morning.
When the debates revolve around Fiona, the mother remains unmoved, like a stranger.
She answers questions, defends herself against any violence without any emotion showing through.
Not even an ounce of a burst of anger.
"She never showed the slightest emotion, she showed detachment"
Cécile Bourgeon nevertheless swears that she "loves her children".
On the first day of the trial, she mentions Fiona, this “baby-pill” that she has chosen to keep.
“I was happy to be pregnant.
It was going to change my life.
We were happy, ”she explains in a monotonous voice without managing to convince the audience.
Nor the investigators, who came to testify on the second day of the trial.
“When we heard him in police custody, Cécile Bourgeon cooperated.
Unlike Berkane Makhlouf, she has always expressed the desire to find her little girl, recalls François Bernard, former regional director of the PJ of Clermont-Ferrand.
But she never showed the slightest emotion.
She was showing detachment ”.
The investigator was even struck by "inappropriate remarks".
It was a few days after Fiona disappeared.
The young woman, taking the role of the tearful mother, had made believe that her child had been kidnapped.
“People had mobilized to find Fiona.
But she was more concerned with the details, remembers the policeman.
She did not have the attitude of a mother who had just lost her child.
She asked her companion if she had put on weight or if her dress suited her, ”recalls the police officer.
"Strategy of lies"
Clément Maurice, head of division of the SRPJ, has deciphered at length what he calls "the strategy of lies".
"Ten to fifteen days after Fiona's disappearance, Cécile Bourgeon went so far as to send a text to Berkane Makhlouf to tell him that she had a glimmer of hope because a rumor said that her daughter had been seen in Villeurbanne", develops he.
A chilling attitude when we know that the girl had already died for almost two weeks.
"I was a bad mother but I never hit my children", assures the accused yet unable to remember the age that Fiona would have had on December 3, 2020. What to shock the president of the court putting this forgetting "on the account of emotion".
During the first week of the trial, Cécile Bourgeon never wavered, unable even to address the slightest glance at her mother when she took the stand, confident "to love her and never to have let go. ".
Cécile Bourgeon will not have had any reactions to Nicolas Chafoulais, Fiona's father, who came to implore her to tell the truth.
“If I knew where my daughter's body was, I would have said so,” she replies for the umpteenth time… With the same indifference still.
The debates will continue until December 16.
The two accused face thirty years of criminal imprisonment.
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