“I apologize to the mayor,” says the defendant half-heartedly, at the Évry-Courcouronnes court.
Aged 53, he is on trial this Thursday for violence against Gérard Rassier, the mayor (SE) of Écharcon (800 inhabitants), and also for damage to public property.
On August 19, 2022, the fifty-year-old was drunk and attacked the councilor, whom he will have to compensate to the tune of 800 euros for his damage and 1,800 euros for the damage committed on a municipal vehicle.
He has 18 months to comply, under penalty of two months in prison.
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But what exactly happened on this summer day of 2022?
At the end of the day, the defendant was drinking alcohol on a village bridge when the mayor arrived.
The elected official was making a tour to check for the presence of illegal dumping of garbage in his municipality.
Very quickly, the tone rises.
The defendant begins to insult the elected official, who therefore prefers to get back into the city van to leave, pursued by the fifty-year-old.
He also jumps into his car and then hits the van very violently.
A “little resentment”
And it doesn't stop there.
The man gets out of his car, breaks the driver's side window of the van, opens the door and gets in while the mayor gets out of the vehicle on the passenger side.
The defendant then engages gear and rushes the van into the ditch two meters below.
Then he gets back in his car and returns home where he will be arrested shortly after.
His blood alcohol level then exceeded 1.5 g.
As the gendarmes bring him back, he confides to them that he "missed his shot", because he wanted to "throw the mayor into the water".
At the hearing, he explained that he had “a little resentment” against the mayor who allegedly refused to hold a funeral and a baptism in the church, and because, he explained, “when my father was buried, the cemetery was not drained and in his grave there is plenty of water.”
“The mayor did nothing about it,” he blames.
On the day of the incident, “the mayor came to see me.
He didn't say hello to me and started taking photos.
I got angry, I ran after him,” he says, acknowledging all of the facts with which he is accused.
“His explanations do not reassure me.
Resentment does not justify attacking elected officials, especially in this way,” objects the deputy prosecutor who had requested a ten-month suspended prison sentence.
Already in 2018, Gérard Rassier was thrown to the ground by an irascible truck driver who crossed his town illegally.