A 27-year-old man who participated in the demonstration against the "megabasins" on March 25 in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) was sentenced Thursday, July 28 to one year in prison by the criminal court of Niort.
Remanded in custody on 22 June after asking for time to prepare his defence, he will not return to prison but will wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.
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'Aim to degrade'
He was prosecuted for having "been part of the active groups of the demonstration with the aim of degrading" the construction site of a disputed water reservoir and "committing violence against the soldiers of the gendarmerie" who were protecting the area. Justice also accused him of a tag - "ACAB" ("all cops are bastards": all cops are bastards) - written on a police truck that burned during the violence and to have "contained" a stolen gendarmerie jacket in a vehicle - he only "picked it up" while it "dragged on the ground", according to his lawyers.
They plan to appeal the sentence, judging the sentence pronounced "infinitely too heavy in view of the alleged facts". Loïc Schneider, 27, had previously been sentenced to three years in prison for violence committed during a protest against the G20 in Germany in 2017.
Three other defendants, aged 25, 26 and 27, received suspended prison sentences of two to four months for receiving theft or participating in a group to prepare violence. On 22 June, a 42-year-old man was sentenced to 10 months in prison for throwing stones at gendarmes. On September 8, seven other people will be tried in Niort for organizing the demonstrations of October 29, 2022 and March 25, 2023 in Sainte-Soline despite the ban of the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres.