Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
A COURT HAS sentenced to four months in prison a man who slapped President Emmanuel Macron across the face after being angered by what he said was the French leader’s “friendly and mendacious” look.
Damien Tarel, a 28-year-old medieval history enthusiast, was handed a prison term of 18 months, 14 of which were suspended, after slapping Macron on Tuesday.
He has been in custody since the assault, which a prosecutor at the hearing called “absolutely unacceptable” and “an act of deliberate violence”.
Tarel was placed under arrest following the verdict from the court in the southern city of Valence and will spend the night in jail as he begins his sentence.
In its verdict, the court followed a recommendation from prosecutors for an 18-month sentence, but said he should serve only four, after a fast-track hearing.
Tarel, who had risked a maximum three-year jail sentence and a fine of €45,000, had waived his right to a full-blown trial.
The long-haired history buff and board games enthusiast told investigators that he “acted instinctively and without thinking” after waiting for Macron outside a school in the village of Tain-l’Hermitage.
In court, he expressed sympathy for the anti-government “yellow vest” movement and said that he and two friends had considered throwing an egg or a cream pie at the head of state during his visit to the Drome region, according to the BFM news channel.
Ordered to get a job
“Macron represents the decline of our country,” he told the court.
Tarel, unemployed and living on benefits, said he had been annoyed by Macron’s decision to come to greet him – “an electoral tactic that I didn’t appreciate”, BFM reported.
In court, Tarel added that it was part of Macron’s strategy “to target young French people” as the president prepared for next year’s election.
In a video of the incident, a smiling Macron can be seen striding towards a crowd of onlookers including Tarel who are being kept behind a barrier.
“When I noticed his friendly and mendacious look I understood that he wanted to turn me into a somebody who would vote for him,” Tarel told the court.
The slap, Tarel said, came after “I was flooded with a feeling of injustice”.
In its verdict, the court also ordered Tarel, who had no prior convictions, to find a job or a job training programme, and banned him from carrying any weapon for five years.
Prosecutor Alex Perrin told the court he was worried that Tarel might commit similar offences again, saying he had detected “a kind of cold determination” in the defendant, and was suspicious of his links to “martial arts, the Middle Ages and the world of mangas”.
‘Ordinary guy’
Tarel’s lawyer, Elodie Guellier, acknowledged that her client’s act had been “particularly inappropriate”, but added that he was “just an ordinary guy who had never hit anybody” and who understood the gravity of his act.
Macron himself has shrugged off the incident, calling it an “isolated event”, and he has vowed to continue meeting voters despite concerns for his personal security.
Asked about it again during an interview today with BFM, he called it a “stupid, violent act” and suggested it was a consequence of the poisonous atmosphere found on social media.
“You get used to the hatred on social media that becomes normalised,” he said. “And then when you’re face-to-face with someone, you think it’s the same thing. That’s unacceptable.”
Leaders across the political spectrum have united in condemning the slap, with many seeing it as a symptom of the fraught political climate and declining standards of public debate just weeks from regional elections and 10 months from presidential polls.
“The political climate is turning to vinegar. It’s dangerous what’s happening,” senior leftist MP and regional election candidate Clementine Autain told France Info.
Others saw the assault as a sign of how Macron, a reformist former investment banker, continues to inspire visceral rejection from many French people.
His presidency was rocked by the anti-government “yellow vest” protests in 2018-2019, which were driven in part by anger at his economic reforms as well as his abrasive personality.
Macron, 43, whose personal ratings have risen recently, is expected to seek a second term next year.
Polls show him holding a narrow lead over his main rival, far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
Other modern French presidents have been targeted in shootings, including post-war leader Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac.
In 2011, right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy had a security scare in southwest France when he was grabbed violently by the shoulder by a 32-year-old local government employee.
- © AFP 2021.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Apart from illegal immigrants, who have been promised their own front door key and some landlords, the majority of people in the country have been ignored, used, and let down by our landlord politicians.
Hardly surprising that there is growing opposition to open door immigration and welfare for
all-comers when the government make no effort to look after our own.
It is really impossible now, after Roderick O’Gorman’s decision to translate his plans into multiple languages including the Georgian language, offering to provide asylum seekers with their “own-door” accommodation and “wrap-around supports, healthcare and education” on social media without having the infrastructure or finance to support it.
The reality is we are worse off than the last general election.
You reap what u sow after the crash construction workers and tradesmen were treated with contemt by the government lot emergrated some gave it up young lads now have no interest in construction as for bringing in foreign workers forget it no were for them or there families to live big mess
And won’t change by the following election either, regardless of who wins it!!
As someone else here mentioned, not enough builders and no indication of that changing. The last time we went on a building frenzy we imported the labour, they aren’t available anymore as every other developed country has a building shortage too.
Any politician who says they are going to solve the housing crisis is telling lies,
Regardless of what party or political persuasion.
@P.J. Nolan: Agree fully.
It’s going to get worse.
The situation will never improve with the rotating clown show that is going on. We’re the fools for putting them on the ballots at all.
Speculators including politicians buying up council land and then sitting on the property until it’s value increases by millions
“What we need is a vast scaling up of ambition”. Don’t make me laugh! There needs to be ambition there in the first place, something that is nonexistent in this current government.
A 100 years of lazy governments cannot be undone in 4 years
The ‘government’ (doesn’t matter who) has no interest in solving this.
@TG McMahon: we will never know when them bunch are repeatedly left in charge again and again and again
The uncomfortable truth that has to be accepted by everyone – but the general public particularly – is that our infatuation with home ownership is directly driving the housing shortage as much as any other factor. The development companies say it outright, there isn’t enough profit in it for them to build.
The fact we have people tripping over themselves to buy houses at 3, 4, 500k is being preyed on.. all stakeholders want their 20, 40k out of each house. It’s a rat race. Like healthcare is going, if you don’t jump to private you’ll be left behind.
We need to jump off this Hollywood train where a coffee is 12 euro and a haircut 60 because everyone is ‘entitled’ to be a business person and buying your own house is a status badge as much as anything else. ‘We’ have created and are maintaining the rod for our own backs, and the gameplayers are using it to full capacity with the backing of FFG. There is no possible happy ending on this track, we need to stop thinking just me, me, me and look at what we have collectively created. We are not Kardashian.
Housing and property is exactly why we have an open door policy on illegal immigration.
It is so companies like Cuckoo, Blackrock and other huge investment companies can maintain their asset prices ahead of any potential global financial crash. These companies are already taking a financial hit on all their commercial properties and the fear is that if there is another crash, all those family homes they have been buying out to bulk up their portfolios will also take a hit. It is no surprise that the government is now talking about converting office blocks into residential areas – this ensures that these companies boost the value of their commercial properties. I wonder how much of taxpayer’s money will be handed over in these refurbishments, most of which cost more to convert than if they were simply to build a new block of apartments? How much more of our public funds will be transferred to these private “shadow banks” as they are often referred to and more to the point, who will these apartments be for.
If there is another crash, these companies can no longer rely on quantitive easing, i.e. the central banks flooding the market with extra cash to keep their asset prices up, so how do you keep commercial and residential prices up in a failing economy? Oh, I know convert commercial to residential and simultaneously flood the country with a mass of people from all over the globe thus flooding the market with extra demand for housing. High demand plus low supply equals higher prices, che-ching!
On top of that, these companies won’t just secure high prices for their assets, but undoubtedly, in the interests of housing migrants, apartments and houses will be handed over to “asylum seekers” in the interest of “offering refuge”, whilst public money is used to subsidise or pay entirely for their rental costs, handing over further public funds to the same private interests in a double whammy of theft from the people – che-ching-che-ching!
But the government will look a whole lot different after it
have your say