A twenty-eight year-old Frenchman who described himself as a right-wing or extreme-right “patriot” was sentenced to four months in prison Thursday for slapping President Emmanuel Macron in the face.... Talktokemi
Damien Tarel
was also banned from ever holding public office in France and from owning
weapons for five years over the swipe Tuesday, which caught Macron’s left cheek
with an audible thwack as the French leader was greeting a crowd.
During
Thursday’s trial, Tarel testified that the attack was impulsive and unplanned,
and prompted by anger at France’s “decline.”
He sat
straight and showed no emotion as the court in the southeastern city of Valence
convicted him on a charge of violence against a person invested with public
authority. He was sentenced to four months in prison and handed an additional
14-month suspended sentence. His girlfriend broke down in tears.
Tarel, who
shouted a centuries-old royalist war cry as he hit the president, described
himself as a right-wing or extreme-right “patriot” and member of the yellow
vest economic protest movement that shook Macron’s presidency in 2018 and 2019.
Poised and calm,
he firmly defended his action and his views on Macron, without providing
details of what policies he wants France to change.
Tarel
acknowledged hitting the president with a “rather violent” slap. “When I saw
his friendly, lying look, I felt disgust, and I had a violent reaction,” he
told the court. “It was an impulsive reaction… I was surprised myself by the
violence.”
While he said
he and his friends had considered bringing an egg or a cream pie to throw at
the president, he said they dropped the idea — and insisted that the slap
wasn’t premeditated.
“I think that
Emmanuel Macron represents the decline of our country,” he said, without
explaining what he meant.
He told
investigators that he held right- or ultra-right political convictions without
being a member of a party or group, according to the prosecutor’s office.
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