A CRS indicted for the blinding of a yellow vest in 2019 in Paris

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: Estelle Ruiz / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP 17:35 p.m., May 05, 2023

A 48-year-old police officer was indicted in March and risks the assizes for the blinding of a "yellow vest" in Paris on November 16, 2019, AFP learned Friday from a source close to the case, confirming information from La Voix du Nord.

Fabrice T., assigned to a Republican Security Company (CRS), was indicted on 30 March for intentional violence by a person holding public authority followed by mutilation or permanent disability, a crime punishable by assizes. It is not subject to judicial review.

A total and permanent loss of the protester's eye

Manuel Coisne had been injured in the eye by a tear gas grenade on November 16, 2019 during this authorized demonstration of the "yellow vests" Place d'Italie in Paris, which had degenerated before being canceled by the prefecture of police.

In the extremely viral video of the moment of his injury, the then 41-year-old man talks away from the chaos with other protesters near the Italy 2 shopping center.

Suddenly, a projectile violently hits his left eye. Three days after the injury, a medical expertise had certified that the loss of the eye was total and permanent, with aesthetic and functional sequelae.

According to elements of his interrogation seen by AFP, Fabrice T. claims to have intervened in a "very hostile (...) following a request from the firefighters who wanted to extinguish the burning barricades and who were attacked by hostile demonstrators."

Waiting for the study of the criminal responsibility of the former prefect Didier Lallement

When told that investigations and ballistic expertise, based on numerous videos, conclude that it was one of his two shots that seriously wounded Manuel Coisne, Fabrice T. replied "I do not know what to say about it" and conceded that the demonstrator's injury was "dramatic". He disagrees with the expert's conclusions that his shot is non-regulatory, "comparable to a tense shot".

"We will contest this indictment before the investigating chamber for a set of reasons because nothing is justified in this decision," responded his lawyer, Laurent-Franck Liénard.

"Manuel and his wife are relieved after these three years of waiting. But confident in criminal justice. They are now waiting for the study of the criminal responsibility of the prefect Didier Lallement who gave the orders, "responded Arié Alimi, who defends Manuel Coisne.

An investigating judge decided at the end of August to investigate the accusations of two figures of the "yellow vests" claiming to have been endangered by a trap and prevented from demonstrating during the same demonstration on November 16, 2019.