Will we know more about what happened in Margaux Pinot's apartment on the night of November 28, 2021?
Relaxed at first instance by the Bobigny court, Alain Schmitt, against whom his former companion had filed a complaint for aggravated violence, is on appeal this Friday in Paris.
"The objective elements, as well as the lesions observed on one and the other, the traces of struggle observed in the apartment" accredit both the story of Margaux Pinot and that of Alain Schmitt, had estimated the court from Bobigny.
Four months after the alleged facts, the media unpacking, and the dissemination of a photo of the swollen face of the young woman, who "upset" by the verdict in the first instance, had chosen to show herself on social networks, the two judokas will meet again.
Since then, Margaux Pinot, who will be heard as a witness (the prosecution, which in the first instance had requested a 12-month suspended sentence, had appealed the release), resumed competition, notably winning the Grand Slam of Paris.
Alain Schmitt, who, a few hours after the evening of November 28 was to fly to Tel Aviv, had to review his plans after Israel gave up hiring him.
VIDEO: "He wanted to strangle me", accuses Margaux Pinot, "I have never hit a woman", assures Alain Schmitt
The former coach of Blanc Mesnil (the club that Margaux Pinot left after the facts) is now in charge of the Bulgarian national selections.
"My client approaches the hearing extremely calmly, he is very confident and calm", explains his lawyer Caroline Wassermann, specifying that Alain Schmitt "has never changed his speech.
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The debates promise to be heated once again
This Friday, the coach should therefore return to the circumstances of what he has called from the start "a chiffonade".
“We grab each other, we wobble in all directions and we bump into each other,” he had described to the Bobigny hearing.
The former judoka had denied having struck the slightest blow on the one who was then his companion, believing that he had only defended himself against a “furious” Margaux Pinot.
The many bruises on the young woman's face (also had a black eye and scratch marks on her forehead)?
“We crumbled.
The few traces of blood on the walls of the apartment?
“I guess that's where it must have rubbed, if there's a lot of blood, we bumped into each other a lot.
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Later, during a press conference or the interviews he gave, Schmitt repeated that it was Margaux Pinot, "a tornado", who that evening "in a mad rage" threw himself on him.
The version, of the one who was not "officially" his companion (Alain Schmitt is married) and with whom he had a checkered relationship, differs.
Read also "I was close to death" ... the confessions of Margaux Pinot, who accuses her companion of having hit her
Interviewed twice by the police, on November 28 and 29, then before the court, the Olympic champion explains that Alain Schmitt, after an altercation, threw her on the ground while she was on her bed and told her punched in the face.
As she tried to flee, her companion would then have held her back by the hair.
Managing to escape, the young woman had found refuge with neighbors, some of whom testified to having heard her cries.
Three doctors also attested to Pinot's injuries.
This Friday, Alain Schmitt's lawyers could point to a photo, attached to the minutes, which according to the defense could call into question the thesis of the hair torn out.
On the picture, taken by judoka Madeleine Malonga, who hosted Margaux Pinot after the violent evening, we see a lock of hair in the immediate vicinity of a pair of scissors.
A medical certificate, however, notes an absence of hair on an area of 3 cm by 3 of "his occipital scalp", that is to say at the back of the skull.
The sign of ripped hair?
The debates promise to be heated once again, even if, after the exchanges by media interposed in December, the tension has gone down a notch.
Judgment should be reserved.