A woman was sentenced to 10 months in prison, found guilty of assaulting a Paris firefighter during the May Day parade.
A 38-year-old woman, tried in immediate appearance in Paris, was convicted on Wednesday of assaulting a Paris firefighter during the May 1 parade and sentenced to ten months in prison, in his absence.
Also sentenced to a one-year ban on protesting, she will have to pay 700 euros to the firefighter for non-pecuniary damage, and one euro to the prefect of police.
On the videos taken during the May 1 demonstration broadcast on social networks, we see the defendant, orange helmet on her head, trying to snatch the fire hose from a firefighter in the process of extinguishing a fire lit by Some protestors. After several unsuccessful attempts, she strikes him twice on the helmet before being overpowered.
The woman was arrested an hour after the incident.
“She was determined”, she “sent her arms around me and my lance and she did not want to let go”, testified before the criminal court the firefighter, who was trying at the time of the events to put out a fire which risked spread to an apartment building.
“She told me several times ‘we are going to smash you like in 2019′”, in reference to the demonstrations of the movement of “yellow vests”, said the firefighter. Snapshots of her wearing a yellow vest or posing in combat fatigues were found in her phone.
Already sentenced for acts of violence
This single mother, already convicted in 2018 for acts of violence, did not appear in court on Wednesday.
On May 4, very tested, often in tears, she presented herself to the hearing as “CDI employee trainer in the field of hygiene” after having been “nurse aide during the Covid”.
His counsel argued his psychological fragility and anxiety attacks, and requested the dismissal of the substantive hearing, rejected by the president.
It was therefore in her absence, and without representation from her lawyers – who left the room arguing that they had no mandate to defend her – that the substantive hearing was held.
The president indicated that “nothing is confirmed”, neither the fixed-term contracts as a caregiver, nor the fact that she would be unemployed since 2020 or that she would have two sons.
The prosecutor, who had mentioned “a person reluctant to institutions”, had requested eight months of imprisonment.