Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: Valery HACHE / AFP 7:45 p.m., March 8, 2024

The Lyon criminal court sentenced the commissioner who ordered the police charge, during which Geneviève Legay was seriously injured, to six months in prison.

The court found that the charge was “not justified”, “neither proportionate nor necessary”. 

The Lyon Criminal Court on Friday sentenced the commissioner who ordered the charge during which Geneviève Legay, who participated in a “yellow vest” demonstration banned in Nice in 2019, to a six-month suspended prison sentence, was seriously injured.

The court found that the charge order given by Police Commissioner Rabah Souchi "was not justified, proportionate or necessary" in the established context.

The decision is in accordance with the prosecution's requisitions during the trial of January 11 and 12.

Prosecutor Alain Grellet then estimated that the order to charge the demonstrators had been given "neither necessary, nor proportional, nor in accordance with the regulations".

The defense lawyer, Me Laurent-Franck Liénard, denounced “a very questionable and unsurprising decision”.

“We will appeal,” he said.

On March 23, 2019 in Nice, Geneviève Legay, then departmental spokesperson for Attac and aged 73, took part in a banned “yellow vest” demonstration.

Knocked down in a police charge, she suffered multiple fractures and head trauma.

“I wanted to win so that it would set a precedent, it has to stop”

“I am very happy with what is happening today (Friday, editor’s note) because I have always wanted justice to be done,” reacted Geneviève Legay in Nice, in front of several dozen people who came to support her in front of the Palais de justice.

“If I wanted to do this trial, it is also because I wanted it to be useful to all the victims of police violence (...). I wanted to win so that it would set a precedent, we must stop, we must let it stop,” she added.

His lawyer Me Arie Alimi welcomed "a fundamental decision", affirming that "from now on no order giver will be protected by immunity, irresponsibility in matters of use of force or weapons by the forces of the order".

The trial focused on the conditions in which the charge had been launched, in a very short time after the usual summons, which, according to the prosecution, had not left the demonstrators time to disperse, nor for the police to prepare properly.

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For the defense, on the contrary, the order given was "totally legal", according to Me Laurent-Franck Liénard, who had requested the release of his client.

The lawyer argued that the commissioner could not be prosecuted "for an act committed by another official", further considering that the facts did not meet "the criteria of the law in terms of complicity".

During the trial, Geneviève Legay testified about a day which had left her "really diminished".

Believing that nothing could happen to her, with the peace flag in hand, she "wanted to take one last turn of the flag and say 'freedom to demonstrate'", she said.

At the time, the images of the lifeless septuagenarian on the ground had caused a lot of ink to flow, especially since the authorities are suspected of having sought to cover up the affair, the Nice prosecutor having, initially, denied any contact between the activist and the police, a thesis taken up at the Élysée by Emmanuel Macron.

“The most effective tactic that day”

Prosecuted for "complicity in violence by a person holding public authority", Rabah Souchi assured that the decision to charge was "the most effective tactic that day" in order to meet the dispersal objective set by the prefect.

The action was justified, according to him, by the presence of demonstrators on the tram tracks and their refusal to leave even though the demonstration was prohibited.

He also insisted on the role of the police officer who pushed Geneviève Legay, believing that this agent had “detached himself from the collective action”.

The latter was not prosecuted, which gave rise to extensive discussions on this legal situation during the various pleadings and requisitions.

At the beginning of February, Rabah Souchi, 54, was appointed deputy director of the Nice municipal police.