Francis Lalanne calls for a coup. In a column published on Friday January 22 on the site of France Evening, the whimsical singer calls the French army "to reverse" Emmanuel Macron and his government. According to him, the President of the Republic would take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to establish the "tyranny". Denouncing the state of health emergency and the measures put in place to fight the virus, Francis Lalanne believes that the head of state and his government "wipe their feet on Republican Law like a doormat". "The government is insidiously carrying out a coup d'etat in the name of COVID; and is about to institute tyranny as an avatar of the Republic, unbeknownst to the French people", can we read in the open letter of the one who wanted to represent the Yellow Vests movement in the European elections.
More specifically, he asks the army to "take up arms" to put "incapable of harming the President of the Republic", but also "to end the exercise of the mandate of the current President of the Republic" and finally do it "appear before a tribunal constituted as a High Court, to answer for the head of High treason". All while daring a risky comparison: "I call on the highest dignitaries of the French Army concerned with ensuring the reign of Order and Republican Law, to remind the President of the Republic as General De Villiers knew how to do in his time, to respect his prerogatives and the interest of the Nation ".
The desobedience "a civic duty" according to Francis Lalanne
While waiting for the army to hear his appeal, the author and composer calls on the French to disobedience, believing that it is now "a right, but also a civic and civic duty". "It is now up to us French citizens to assert what is right by putting an end to the disturbance. We are The People. We are sovereign", did he declare. The actor concludes his column by explaining that the priority is to reopen "all cultural and commercial spaces, and other theaters or businesses affected by discriminatory and liberticidal measures".
A call to overthrow Emmanuel Macron which could well be expensive for the one who took the lead of the eco-citizen movement in 2017. As reported by du Huffington Post, "the singer's writings may in fact be liable to prosecution under article 413-3 of the Criminal Code." Considered a "attacks on the security of the armed forces and on protected areas relevant to national defense", his call to disobedience "in order to harm national defense, to provoke disobedience by any means whatsoever in the military or subjugated persons assigned to any form of national service" is punished by five years' imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
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