Le Figaro Nice
L'Escarène is one of those damp villages in the high country of Nice which lives slowly, almost at a standstill.
Wedged in the bottom of the Paillon - a valley where the streams of Redebraus and Paillon intertwine -, this town of 2500 souls is imperturbable, silent.
On the sidewalks soaked with the rains of the day before, we walk the dog, go get our bread, our cigarettes, or all of them at the same time.
We speak little.
Heavy wooden doors are padlocked, iron curtains rain down in front of the facades of a few closed shops.
In the maze of alleys, stairs of greenish and viscous stones call for caution.
It was in this semi-hospitable setting that a terrible drama unfolded on October 12: the presumed burglar of a small apartment was chased and then beaten to death by a gang of young people,
right in the middle of the village.
A drama on which still rests a thick mystery.
That day, Muguette, 66, who lives on the old road to Lucéram, was alone at home.
Her husband, Yves, is hospitalized and should not return until later.
The apartment door is closed but not locked.
“Usually there is nothing to fear here, it's quiet.
Here, sometimes we go to visit the neighbors leaving the door ajar”
, justifies Yves.
It is approximately 8 p.m. when the sixty-year-old, busy reconnecting the TV in her bedroom, sees a shadow sneaking into the living room.
This shadow wears a hood and a backpack that she clearly distinguishes.
"What are you doing at my house?"
, she screams, panicked.
She barely has time to finish her sentence when the silhouette returns to the front door and fades into the night.
"He didn't speak to me or touch me, it went very quickly
," she recalls.
Without further ado, Muguette telephones her husband, who himself warns his wife's sister, the latter alerting the gendarmes.
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This shadow at Muguette, everything suggests that it is Jérémy Dasylva, 39 years old.
On October 12, he spent the afternoon in Nice with his girlfriend, Olivia, who lived in L'Escarène.
But the couple argues and, at the end of the day, Olivia returns to the village by car, Jérémy by train.
From L'Escarène station to the young woman's home, rue du Serre, it takes about ten minutes on foot.
A course of 800 meters which runs along the home of Yves and Muguette, reinforcing the suspicions as to the involvement of the thirty-something in the larceny.
A so-called manhunt
45 euros and a credit card in his pocket, the presumed burglar of Muguette therefore resumes his journey, towards rue du Serre.
This is where things get out of hand and the versions differ.
In circumstances that remain troubled, even two months after the events, Jérémy is taken to task by a gang of several individuals, aged, according to several concordant sources in
Figaro
, in their twenties.
If some evoke the thesis of a "
manhunt
" in the village to find the burglar, there is no element to fully accredit it.
“
The attack did not take place in front of my house, that I am sure, and I did not see anyone chasing after me after I lay down screaming
,” agrees Muguette.
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Hit, humiliated and even bitten by one, or even several dogs, at the level of the commune's kindergarten, Jérémy manages to flee, pursued by his attackers.
Without knowing why, rather than cutting towards his companion's home, the latter turns back and comes to collapse close to Muguette's home, at the foot of a large staircase.
“We heard him screaming in pain for long minutes.
There was a whole crowd outside, we didn't really understand but we preferred not to get involved
, ”recalls a neighbor.
Autopsy and judicial information
At 9:50 p.m., the victim was found, seriously injured, by the gendarmes.
She was then evacuated by the firefighters and rushed to the Pasteur hospital in Nice, without her vital prognosis being engaged.
On October 14, after two days of hospitalization, she died of her injuries.
"The first conclusions of the medical examiner, following the autopsy carried out on October 19, 2022, underline that the death was due to septic shock following a perforation of the small intestine, itself resulting from a traumatic shock to the 'abdomen"
, details the parquet floor of Nice.
On October 21, at the request of the public prosecutor of Nice, Xavier Bonhomme, a judicial investigation was opened against X on the grounds of "violence committed in a meeting resulting in death without intention to give it", in order to determine the exact circumstances of the death.
To date, the investigation, entrusted to the research brigade of the Nice gendarmerie, is continuing.
No indictment or even any arrest has taken place so far.
“It's not that we don't want to say anything, it's just that we don't know!
We are not in the Middle Ages, we must stop believing that we were 2500 on his heels with pitchforks after the burglary "
In L'Escarène, many claim to have seen or heard nothing.
This is not, however, the rural France of the 1950s. Moreover, those who say they know nothing refuse to hear of any omerta, as it may have been written.
“It's not that we don't want to say anything, it's just that we don't know!
annoyed a baker.
We are not in the Middle Ages, we must stop believing that we were 2500 on his heels with pitchforks after the burglary.
Same story on the side of the town hall:
“We are a little embarrassed because it is not that we want to silence anything, it is just that we do not know more than you
”.
Only the noise of the fountains seems to whisper some information between two alleys.
"I don't know anything and I don't want to know anything
," slices a restaurateur.
"I don't give a damn about gossip
," continues another old man sitting on a bench.
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For Olivia, who had been in a relationship with Jérémy for almost 9 months at the time of the events, there is no doubt that this is a racist crime.
“He was accused of being Arab, which he was not.
He had converted to Islam for a while with his ex, but today he no longer wanted to hear about this religion.
To tell you, I am Jewish and he took part in the celebrations with me
, ”she says, claiming to have “
perfectly
” identified the perpetrators of the lynching of her boyfriend.
“And then it was certainly not a burglar, he was on a permanent contract in a box of movers and he earned 2500 euros per month.
So, 45 euros and a credit card, what would he have done with that?
, she asks herself.
remains that
Figaro
that Jérémy Dasylva was
"well known"
to the police.
“It was not a model of social integration,”
she concludes.
