"Castaner assassin!" : the conviction of a "yellow vest" annulled by the Court of Cassation

The Court of Cassation quashed the conviction for aggravated contempt of Frédéric Vuillaume, a "yellow vest" who had shouted "Castaner assassin!"

during a visit by the former Minister of the Interior in 2019 to Besançon, we learned on Tuesday.

In its judgment of March 16, the Court of Cassation annulled the judgment of the Besançon Court of Appeal which condemned, last July, Frédéric Vuillaume, 48, to a 1,500 euros fine suspended for "contempt of person depositary of public authority committed in assembly ".

"We cannot take from this judgment that we can shout 'Castaner assassin!'"

The Court of Cassation considered that the leader of the "yellow vests" of Besançon had been prosecuted on the basis of a bad offense: Frédéric Vuillaume should not have been tried according to article 433-5 of the penal code but on the basis of the 1881 law on freedom of the press.

"The contempt was not constituted because (the incriminated sentence) was not addressed directly to the minister" who was not present when it was pronounced and learned about it by the press, explained his lawyer Me Jean-Michel Vernier, who supported the brief before the Court of Cassation.

"But we cannot take from this judgment that we can shout 'Castaner assassin!'

and that it is covered by freedom of expression ", underlines Me Vernier.

The court quashed the conviction because "the offense is not constituted, it is no longer the penal code that applies, but the law on the press".

The facts occurred in March 2019, during a visit by the then Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner, for the inauguration of a police station in the sensitive district of Planoise, in Besançon.

The FO trade union representative Frédéric Vuillaume, his wife and another of their comrades had launched "Castaner assassin!"

near the police station to be visited by the minister.

Christophe Castaner had not lodged a complaint

At first instance, the Vuillaume couple had been sentenced to a suspended fine of 1,500 euros, sentence confirmed on appeal.

Frédéric Vuillaume had appealed in cassation.

The third defendant had been fined 1,000 euros and he had not appealed.

At the hearing, before the criminal court of Besançon, the "yellow vests" had insisted on the "political" dimension of the apostrophe: they meant "'assassin of freedom' or 'assassin of the right to demonstrate'", then explained Mr. Vernier.

Christophe Castaner had not lodged a complaint and had not become a civil party.

Last September, Amnesty International denounced in a report the "judicial harassment" against demonstrators in France.

In 2018 and 2019, more than 40,000 people were convicted of various offenses and offenses "on the basis of vague laws", frequently "used to illegally restrict the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression," says long.