A 77-year-old pensioner living in Eure was sentenced to follow a citizenship course after posting a banner against the President of the Republic on his house.
In the current context, it is a decision that challenges. A resident of Saint-Agnan-de-Cernières, a small village in Eure, was sentenced to follow a citizenship course after displaying a banner in front of his house against the President of the Republic.
On April 30, as related Norman Awakening, gendarmes from the Bernay gendarmerie company were patrolling this rural area when they came across two banners displayed on the fence of a roadside house. One of them evokes opposition to wind turbines, the other is addressed directly to the Head of State with the words “Macron, we annoy you”.
A summons to the police
This registration was worth a summons to the pensioner who went the next day to the gendarmerie to be heard there within the framework of a free hearing. The man explained that he was dissatisfied with the President of the Republic. “He has his ideas but he is someone with whom we can discuss”, assures the mayor of Saint-Agnan-de-Carnières to BFMTV.com.
“He is a resident like any other, the elected official is still surprised, this banner has been installed for several months, I am surprised that this is happening today”. Informed the prosecution of Ecreux gave this retiree, former municipal councilor of the village, a summons to follow a course of citizenship, the date of which has not yet been fixed. The banners were removed and seized.
“Outrage”
The offense of insulting the head of state was removed from French criminal law in 2013 following a conviction by the European Court of Human Rights. The fact of displaying this banner against the Head of State characterizes, according to justice, an “contempt against a person holding public authority”.
A resident of Pas-de-Calais will be tried on June 20 by the Saint-Omer criminal court for “public insult to the President of the Republic by word, writing, image or means of communication by electronic voice”. On her Facebook account, she had written “the junk will speak at 1 p.m.” referring to a television intervention by Emmanuel Macron.
In this case, the prosecutor of Saint-Omer instituted proceedings on the basis of l’article 31 of the law on the freedom of the press which sanctions “defamation (…) by reason of their functions or their quality, towards the President of the Republic, one or more members of the ministry, one or more members of the either House, a public official, a depositary or agent of public authority (…)”.
