Police officer Xavier Jugelé was assassinated on the Champs-Elysées by a man shot dead shortly after by the police.
Four people are on trial from Monday in Paris for their alleged complicity in this murder, claimed at the time by the Islamic State organization.
The attack had marked public opinion and the campaign for the presidential election.
Four men are on trial from Monday in Paris for their alleged complicity in the assassination of a police officer in 2017 on the Champs-Elysées, claimed by IS.
On April 21, 2017, Xavier Jugelé was behind the wheel of a police bus parked at the top of the avenue when an assailant got out of his car and fired an automatic weapon at the vehicle.
The killer was shot by police shortly after.
A "context of extreme terrorist tension"
Two other police officers and a German tourist were injured in the attack.
"The attack on the Champs-Elysées was striking because it took place on one of the emblematic places of Paris and France, because it hit the police and because it took place three days before the first round of the presidential election of 2017, in a context of extreme terrorist tension. There had been a big plan of attack foiled two days before in Marseilles ", recalls Thibaut de Montbrial, lawyer of the families of the victims, at the microphone from Europe 1.
A single man tried with the terrorist qualification
Only one man appears before the special assize court with the terrorist qualification: Nourredine Allam, aged 31, accused of having sold the Kalashnikov to the killer, Karim Cheurfi, French of 39 years.
He is being prosecuted for conspiracy of terrorist criminals with a view to preparing a crime.
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Even if his clients will not face the shooter, Thibaut de Montbrial does not want to minimize the scope of this trial.
"What is important is that, with this criminal trial, society is showing the gravity of what happened that evening to Xavier Jugelé and his comrades. An attack is not simply the work of one or more operators, it is also a company which could not have prospered if the attacker had acted alone. "