Two months suspended prison sentence were required on Monday February 15 at the Gap Criminal Court against the president of the Hautes-Alpes departmental council Jean-Marie Bernard (LR) for offering a wolf tail, a protected animal, to the former prefect of the department.
Read also: The president of Hautes-Alpes in court for offering a wolf tail
The public prosecutor of Gap Florent Crouhy also requested a 3,500 euros fine against the elected official on trial for detention, transport and transfer of a part of a protected species, an offense punishable by three years in prison and 150,000 euros fine.
The president of Hautes-Alpes had handed over this appendix of the animal on February 21, 2020 to the prefect Cécile Bigot-Dekeyzer during her departure ceremony.
For him, it was about a “
political act
” which he had claimed to defend the breeders, confronted with the attacks of the wolf on their herds.
Several associations for the defense of the environment had then taken justice and the investigation opened by the prosecution had resulted in December in an appearance in preliminary recognition of guilt (CRPC).
The elected had rejected this option, making a trial inevitable.
It is "
a wink that I wanted to make and a strong gesture: the prefects pass, the wolf remains and the breeders are still so desperate
", declared Bernard in February 2020.
On the sidelines of the hearing, several hundred farmers and breeders but also environmental defense associations demonstrated in front of the criminal court.
"
This requisition is quite extravagant
", responded Me Philippe Neveu, lawyer for Jean-Marie Bernard, believing that "
reasonably, the court should release
" his client.
"
The indictment looked more like a plea on state action
," he further lamented.
Bernard's approach “
had an assumed political vocation.
We would acquit a Femen activist who knocks down a wax statue of Putin at the Grevin museum;
we would release activists (
Identity Generation, editor's note
) at the Franco-Italian border and we would not recognize the political dimension of the gesture of an elected official during an official ceremony?
», Indignant Neveu.
For Me Mathieu Victoria, the lawyer for the League for the protection of birds (LPO), who had lodged a complaint, "
the prosecutor's requisition is very motivated and the sentence seems to me to be very consistent with the criminal offense committed
", t -he says.
At the hearing, Bernard “
maintained his totally ubiquitous position and we our own (...).
The debate on the wolf deserves something other than this buzz,
”he added.
Before the trial, Bernard's defense had indicated that the latter had found this wolf tail on his mailbox a few weeks before the ceremony and would be "
unable to say
" if it was a wolf tail.
According to the prosecutor, the accused "
knew perfectly well that he had a wolf's tail in his hands
".
“
It wasn't until a few days later that he backpedaled and said he wasn't sure,
” he said.
The judgment was reserved on March 12.