"All these objects were going to the landfill, I found it lame"
: presenting himself as a history buff, a 45-year-old man appeared in court on Wednesday in Aix-en-Provence for having looted, for years , the former largest American military camp in Europe.
"Didn't you know it was forbidden to search?"
, asks the president to the defendant, who, since
"very young",
used to walk in this area.
"I know it's forbidden on prehistory, the Romans, all that, but I didn't know at all that it was forbidden for the last war"
, defends the man, in whom thousands of objects, essentially from the Second World War, have been found.
"When you love history, you don't trample on it"
Weapons, badges, identity discs but also everyday objects from the former Camp de Calas, where two million American soldiers transited, between 1944 and 1946, west of Aix -in Provence.
"It's the largest military camp that has been set up in Europe, it's an entire city that we had created
," reminds AFP Xavier Delestre, regional curator of archeology at the Department of Cultural Affairs.
Next door was a German prison camp, from which some of the looted items also came.
"I found old revolvers that were very degraded, if I hadn't kept them they would still be underground",
defended the defendant, who for twelve years had used a metal detector, as well as a mini-backhoe, once.
“He is accused of having badly preserved objects which were already in poor condition”
, stings his lawyer, master Samir Bouchama.
The exhumed objects were exhibited at his client's home, where an entire room was dedicated to them, but also stored in two garages and five containers.
These conservation conditions, in particular due to the significant temperature variations in the containers, caused
“significant damage”
to these vestiges, underlined the president, evoking restoration costs
“from 1000 to 3000 euros per object”.
"The best protection" for these vestiges, "is to leave them as they are"
, recalled Xavier Delestre at the helm.
Read the fileSecond World War: 1940, the year of disaster
Anxious to see pronounced a
“concrete sanction”
, so that the defendant becomes aware
of “the damage created to the French cultural heritage”
, the prosecutor, Antoine Guintini, requested 240 day-fine at 20 euros.
"When you love history, you don't trample on it"
, argued the lawyer for the Drac, master Pascal Antiq, according to whom, in this case,
"the gentleman degraded this site for his personal pleasure"
: here
" we have gone from passion to compulsion, perhaps even to pathology”.
The decision was reserved for February 22.
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