Ilias Akoudad admitted during the trial to being the author of the fatal shooting of the police officer in May 2021. The prosecutor of Avignon (Vaucluse), Florence Galtier, requested life imprisonment for the murder.
“It was an earthquake within the national police, but also within the population,” recalled Frédéric Vaux, director general of the nationalPolice, on the first day of the hearing. Police officers from all over France took part in a rally in support of Eric Masson's loved ones.