The prosecution requested on Wednesday two to three years of suspended imprisonment against a CRS, tried before the Paris Assize Court for an unjustified throwing of a grenade which blinded a trade unionist during a demonstration against the labor law in 2016. Advocate General Christophe Auger asked that this simple suspended sentence be accompanied by a ban on carrying a weapon for five years, but said “do not (wish) that a ban on ‘exercise’ against the 54-year-old brigadier.
Alexandre M. has been appearing free since Monday under judicial supervision for willful violence by a person holding public authority which has resulted in the permanent disability of Laurent Theron.
A hospital secretary who lost the use of his right eye
This hospital secretary and union activist from Sud-Santé permanently lost the use of his right eye after being hit by a pebble from a disencirclement grenade (GMD) on September 15, 2016 in Paris. The facts had occurred shortly before 5 p.m. that day, when the police dispersed opponents of the labor law on the Place de la République, after a demonstration marked by clashes and the burning of a policeman hit by a Molotov cocktail.
Alexandre M., who had just joined his CRS company after twenty years in a night police station and who was not trained in maintaining order, defended Tuesday evening at the bar a “necessary” grenade throw in the face of the “unleashing of violence” by “hostile groups” of demonstrators. “It absolutely had to be done. I had to destabilize them to protect my men,” said the brigadier-chief, adding that he acted after receiving a “projectile on the arm”.
No “self-defense”, according to the Advocate General
The Advocate General considered, on the contrary, that during this operation to clear the square, the chief brigadier, who had become group leader during the demonstration, was neither “in imminent danger” nor in a “state of legitimate defence”, two of the causes that can exonerate his criminal liability.
Before the indictment, Laurent Theron, a civil party to the trial, had asked the court through his lawyer Lucie Simon to “ensure” that the police officer “can no longer exercise”. The verdict is expected in the evening.