• Three people aged 19, 23 and 33 - two men and one woman - with clean criminal records were tried for brief clashes with police in February during the inauguration of Eric Zemmour's party office in Marseille.
  • The prosecutor requested up to eight months in prison, suspended. The lawyers asked for the acquittal.
  • The judgement was reserved on 13 April.

Up to eight months suspended prison sentence were requested Wednesday by the Marseille prosecutor's office against three protesters suspected of violence against police officers during a rally in early February against the inauguration of the first Marseille local of the far-right party Reconquest!, the party of Eric Zemmour. The judgment in this case, for which the defendants' lawyers pleaded acquittal and pointed to the "many flaws" in the proceedings, was reserved until 13 April.

The demonstration, in which some 200 people participated, at the call of trade unions, anti-racist associations or left-wing political parties, took place peacefully until it was dispersed by the police. The defendants, two men and a woman aged 19, 23 and 33 respectively, with clean criminal records, are prosecuted for "violence against a police officer" and "concealment of the face".



"This file is empty!" exclaimed the latter's lawyer, Charlotte Bonnaire, believing that her client "has been confused with another person". As for the concealment of their faces, in particular by an anti-Covid mask, Maître Philippe Chaudon justified it by explaining that activists of Eric Zemmour's party photographed the demonstrators from the balcony of their premises.

The prosecutor has refuted any political trial

"This cover-up served to protect their physical integrity in the face of far-right activists who hand over their opponents on social networks," he said. The defendants' lawyers also criticized a "disproportionate" judicial procedure, with forty-eight hours of police custody followed by four days of pre-trial detention at the Baumettes prison for the three young men.

For her part, prosecutor Eve Tassin denied any political trial and denied having "received instructions that come from her hierarchy or a fantasy at the top". "What is repressed is not their desire to demonstrate or their political positions but their violent action" against the police, she added, conceding, however, that the defendants were "not particularly violent or worrying people".

  • Marseille
  • PACA
  • Eric Zemmour
  • Events
  • Antifa
  • Lawsuit
  • Reconquest! (political party)
  • Justice
  • Far right