The Attorney General of the Rouen Court of Appeal on Friday ordered a resumption of the investigation for acts of police violence allegedly committed during a gathering of "
yellow vests
" at the end of 2018 in Rouen, the complaint of which had been dismissed. .
“
I ordered the investigation to be resumed.
This was entrusted to the public prosecutor of Evreux,
”said Frédéric Benet-Chambellan, attorney general near the Rouen court of appeal, to an AFP correspondent.
To read also: Mythologies of the decade: the "yellow vests"
The complainant, a yellow vest aged 47 at the time, believes that he was beaten with batons on several occasions when, according to him, he was only filming the seventh day of mobilization of the “
yellow vests
” of December 29, 2018. Filed on 3 December 2018. January 2019, the complaint is based on two videos which show the arrest of a person, wearing a yellow vest, filming clashes between demonstrators and the police.
In May 2019, the Rouen public prosecutor dismissed this complaint, based on the conclusions of an investigation by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN).
“
The violence committed appears legitimate, necessary and proportionate.
This man seemed to be in tort and his arrest had to be carried out very quickly given the danger represented by the hostile and violent demonstrators against the police,
”said the IGPN in its summary report, quoted by the lawyer of the plaintiff Me Chloé Chalot in her referral to the Attorney General near the Court of Appeal.
The lawyer had indeed seized in January the general prosecutor's office near the court of appeal of Rouen so that it reverses the position of the public prosecutor.
For Me Chalot, "
the blows carried, even though my client presented no threat and could perfectly well be arrested without the use of force, cannot be considered necessary
", argued the lawyer in her appeal.