France’s fast-track justice after the worst urban violence in years is overwhelming courts, as defence lawyers question hasty case files and tough sentences.
PARIS: French courts have swiftly handed out verdicts, including orders to serve jail time, in fast-track justice for defendants accused over the rioting that erupted on the sidelines of protests at the weekend.
The government says the accelerated legal processes are needed to restore order after some of the worst urban violence in recent years on Saturday. But courts are also overwhelmed, while some lawyers say the scale of the hearings reeks of state repression.
French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said Thursday courts have sent 217 people to prison to serve jail terms over the rioting, out of some 2,700 people detained since Saturday, and added the figure will continue to rise as more hearings take place.
Mathilde B., a student, 19, and 20-year-old Francois D, who said he wants to be a mountain guide, had come to Paris on Saturday from Auxerre, a city southeast of the capital. But police found a knuckleduster and switchblade in the young man’s bag and found the pair had discussed “guerrilla warfare” and “beating up riot police” on social media.
Mathilde B. received a five-month suspended prison sentence but Francois D. however was sent to jail immediately as part of an eight-month sentence, with two months to be served in custody.
Tristan Lawless, a lawyer at the bar in Melun south of Paris, said he was defending a client for whom prosecutors had demanded a five month sentence with immediate custody.
He said the trial was taking place “on the basis of a 50-page case file that, in my view, was put together in haste, with reports that are often vague and lacking detail” and alleged his client had been beaten in custody.
‘Pressure on judges’
Darmanin said Thursday that of the 217 sent to jail “half had no criminal record”, adding that “in general these are men aged between 18 to 25”.
One of the most longstanding and hyperactive members of the government, Darmanin, a former interior minister, is taking a high profile as Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s cabinet seeks to show it is in control.
Once seen as having presidential ambitions himself, he is a leading supporter of former centre-right premier Edouard Philippe who is seen as one of the few candidates capable of defeating far-right frontrunner Marine Le Pen in next year’s elections.
“We’re here to firmly oppose what we see as an attempt by Gerald Darmanin to make the justice system more punitive,” said Paris lawyer Romain Ruiz, a member of the “Colere noire” (Black anger) collective which is highly critical of the judicial system.
He accused Darmanin of “putting pressure on judges in pursuit of harsher penalties” and “publicly celebrating the imprisonment of young people”.
“We will never accept that the justice system should become an arm of repression.”
‘Extremely firm’
Manuel, a 21-year-old cook from central France with no prior criminal record said he had come to Paris “on a whim” to celebrate his birthday with a friend.
But police who stopped him on Saturday close to the starting point of a demonstration, found several glass bottles, some rags, and a lighter — what the prosecutor described as “the perfect kit” for a Molotov cocktail. He was sentenced to two months in prison and another six suspended.
Souleymane, a 19-year-old from Ivory Coast without valid residency in France, was arrested in northern Paris while allegedly trying to steal a scooter after storming a corner shop. Convicted three times previously, he was sentenced to eight months in prison and taken into custody.
Julien M., 27, a video artist from southeast France, is accused of hurling a traffic cone which just missed a policeman. He vowed that the protest would be his last and the court set him free under judicial control until a trial at the end of November.
“Prosecutors and judges are imprisoning people who, until now, were not known to the judiciary and are first offenders,” said Darmanin. “It shows that the decisions of the judiciary are being applied in an extremely firm way.”