Monday evening, the grand-nephew of Brigitte Macron was attacked by a dozen individuals in front of his chocolate factory, in Amiens. Among the eight people arrested following the attack, four were released while three others will be tried in immediate appearance. The last, a 16-year-old minor, will be presented to a juvenile judge.
An attack, several versions, and unanimous condemnations. Monday evening, shortly after the television interview with Emmanuel Macron, Jean-Baptiste Trogneux, 30, manager of a chocolate factory in Amiens and grand-nephew of Brigitte Macron – and therefore by marriage of the President of the Republic – was violently attacked in front of his business in Amiens by a dozen people. He suffers from multiple injuries.
• How did the attack take place?
According to information from police sources obtained by BFMTV, Monday around 10 p.m., several individuals threw projectiles, including trash cans, at the front of the Trogneux chocolate factory, of which Brigitte Macron’s grand-nephew is the boss. Brigitte Macron’s grand-nephew then came down from his home, located just above the store.
He then faced an outpouring of hatred. “He opens the door, and at that time a dozen individuals who recognize him begin to insult him and throw themselves on him and beat him up,” his father Jean-Alexandre Trogneux told BFMTV.
“When I say beating I mean punching him in the face, several times they threw him to the ground and beat him with kicks in the head, in the temple, in the the fingers, in the arms”, he added, specifying that his injuries require a brain scan. “He has a concussion, several damaged fingers, broken ribs,” he detailed his father. Four days of ITT were prescribed to him.
His salvation, Jean-Baptiste Trogneux owes it to the intervention of a neighbor, “who courageously moved with his sons to keep the attackers away and so that he could return home”, explained his father again.
• What is the profile of the aggressors?
Shortly after the assault, eight people were arrested and taken into custody. They are seven adult men, aged 20 to 35, and a 16-year-old girl.
Two people are known to the authorities with criminal records, another is known to territorial intelligence. According to information from RMCthree of the men arrested are “protected adults”, two under curatorship, one under guardianship.
As BFMTV learned this Wednesday morning from a police source, four people will be tried: three adult men in immediate appearance and the minor teenager will be presented to a juvenile judge. Four other individuals were released without any legal proceedings.
Longtime opponents of the President of the Republic and the pension reform, they have participated in numerous rallies against the government organized in Amiens for several weeks.
• What is the version of the aggressors?
Three of the four released attackers denounced to RMC the unfair treatment of this attack in the media. “It’s not because it’s Brigitte Macron’s nephew that we have to defend him. We live in a strange France, we have to wake up,” said one of them. According to their version, the chronology of the altercation would be different.
“We put some trash cans and there is Brigitte Macron’s great-nephew who pushed someone on a trash can,” they say.
“We defended him and he went to file a complaint directly at the police station for violence, supposedly punches, kicks. (…) Brigitte Macron’s nephew jostled our comrade, we came to separate and when we left there was the BAC car that came,” they say again, specifying that they are “not violent.”
The three individuals do not seem to regret the episode. These young people think “we can’t stay like that, especially with a President who doesn’t listen to us”, “we have to have a May 68”.
“Me, what I think is that Emmanuel Macron should resign because there it’s going to go to war, all of France is going to revolt. In Paris it’s hot, in other cities too, now it’s going to be Amiens. There we are heard, we will be heard even more. In any case, we are here and we are not giving up, “concludes one of them.
• General indignation of the political class
Following this episode, the indignation won the whole of the political class. The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron denounced “the brutality and stupidity” of the attackers while his wife, Brigitte Macron, pointed to the “cowardice” of the perpetrators.
In the ranks of the majority, several elected officials have thus denounced the episode. “Worse and worse! And now the family of the President of the Republic,” commented Renaissance MP Karl Olive.
On the LR side, the president of the right-wing party, Éric Ciotti, “firmly” condemned the attack. “Yes to democratic debate, no to violence and terror. The punishment must be relentless for these aggressors,” he wrote on Twitter. Marine Le Pen, the president of the RN deputies in the Assembly, has also called for “very severe” sanctions against the alleged perpetrators of “this type of behavior”.
The Nupes also stood up against the aggression. François Ruffin, LFI deputy for the Somme, who knows the Trogneux family well, judged that “these facts are serious and unacceptable. We do not defend democracy by attacking a chocolate maker”.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon also “protested” against the aggression but asked Emmanuel Macron and “Madame to do the same for our attacked or threatened friends without reserving their concern for Zemmour alone when he was molested”.
• The city of Amiens in shock
In front of Jean-Baptiste Trogneux’s shop, located on a pedestrian street in the city center, and whose old-fashioned facade promotes a house “six generations” old, the saleswomen confide in being regularly victims of “insults” or invective from opponents of the head of state.
“We may not agree, angry, we do not attack the President, we do not attack the family, people physically”, laments a sexagenarian questioned not far from the place of aggression.
Bag of chocolates in hand, a client and “friend” of the Trogneux, Bénédicte Caulliez, is also “very shocked”. “Why? There is no reason to attack the chocolate factory”, laments this sexagenarian. She points to a “rising hatred”, with vague outlines.
This is not the first time that the store has been targeted. Dog droppings in the mail, smoking in a store, tags in others, smashed windows, death threats… The family is the subject of numerous attacks and calls for an end to the amalgamation between “a member of the family and the whole family”.
