Blocking of the Paris court: when magistrates attack lawyers

A face-to-face far removed from those which are usually played between lawyers and magistrates in the courtrooms. Tuesday morning, when dozens of lawyers opposed to the reform of their pensions blocked the entrance to the Paris court, the forecourt became the scene of violence, physical and verbal.

Two of these scenes, filmed, enabled us to identify among the perpetrators of this violence an assessor and a vice-prosecutor. A battered lawyer indicates this Thursday to the Parisian her intention to file a complaint.

A lawyer seized around the neck

Shortly after 10 a.m. on Tuesday, when she blocked access, with other black dresses, to one of the entrances leading to the court where the Fillon couple was to be tried, this demonstrator was seized on the neck by a man the quality of which she did not know.

As Striking lawyers block the entrance to the courts: a person tries to force entry. # Reformedesretraites #Macron #avocatsengreve #France
pic.twitter.com/BI9wLHUyE6

According to our information, he is an assessor, temporarily working in the Paris court.

A man tries to break into the court and grabs a lawyer by the neck. #LawyersInChild pic.twitter.com/IC9elETWPJ

He is also an honorary divisional commissioner, retired since 2004 and worked as director of public security in the Val-d'Oise. Several lawyers report having encountered him in the 23rd correctional chamber number 2, that which judges immediate appearances and in particular ... cases of violence.

It is therefore this magistrate who stood out on Tuesday for his vindictive behavior. "I was against a barrier when this man pushed me. I told him to stop because it hurt me and when I turned around, he grabbed my sister, who was not wearing a dress, by the throat, "recalls Parisian lawyer Louiza Amhis, who was a few centimeters of it.

"It was ringed and had red marks"

Castigating an “excessive attitude”, another member of the Paris bar, also witness to the scene, confirms: “He arrived with a vice-prosecutor, they were both very determined. They split the crowd and started hustling us, telling us that they wanted to go to work. Then, the magistrate grabbed a colleague on the collar while she was doing nothing. "

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On the video, we see the latter start screaming and the man, who still grabs her, backs off and falls, dragging him with him to the ground. "When the lawyer got up, she was ringed and had red marks on her neck," assures Mr. Amhis. The man with the brown mac also ends up getting up with difficulty, and under the hoots of the witnesses of the scene, who reproach him for his attitude, he breathes: "I want to go back […] And you, you have the right to block? Band of idiots! The latter did not respond to our requests.

The battered lawyer, also contacted by Le Parisien, did not return. "I was there to defend the interests of my colleagues and all the litigants and I believe that it is not because we block that we deserve to be strangled", protests the professional, who hears therefore file a complaint against the magistrate. She also plans to meet the man to ask him "what happened to him." Because this black dress, which will continue to demonstrate to challenge the pension reform project, sees in it a symbol heavy with meaning: “By trying to strangle me, he tried to take our word from us. "

"I immediately understood that he was a magistrate"

After attacking her, the assessor eventually moved away from the forecourt, in order to reach the north entrance of the building. He was then accompanied by another magistrate in a blue jacket, who, still according to our information, works as vice-prosecutor at the National Financial Prosecutor's Office and notably carried out requisitions in the trial of the Balkany spouses.

This magistrate also became the protagonist of another scene of violence, this time verbal. A few minutes after the fall of his colleague, he was indeed filmed in front of another blocked entrance to the court. While a lawyer is singing, the man says to her: "I hope you are going to be fooled by this reform, that they are going to put it to you. "

An attorney to a lawyer "I hope that you will be fooled by the pension reform, which will put you very deep" #blocageTJ #AvocatsEnColere @GaspardGlanz https://t.co/9bXVbITjq0 pic.twitter. com / YQis8FP7zI

"He came closer, lowered his voice and threw this sentence at me. You can see it on the video, I have a quarter of a second of amazement, describes his interlocutor, Me Ariana Bobetic. At the beginning I did not tell my colleagues about it, because I thought that nobody would believe me… ”. She says she "immediately understood that he was a magistrate, because just before, he spoke of police custody in progress".

A little later, questioned by the Taranis news media, the man with the purple glasses claims his status. "I am a magistrate, I would like to work [...] and that we do not take the public service of justice hostage", he thunders, saying he has "absolutely nothing to do", reasons for this blockage.

Magistrate received a whim

“We saw one of the faces of this body of civil servants, faced with a movement that wanted to be symbolic. We feel despised by a part of the judiciary having no sympathy towards lawyers and their claims, ”protests lawyer Moad Nefati, who also attended the scene.

Ariana Bobetic has decided not to take legal action against the prosecutor, but assures that her colleagues are thinking of making a report to the Superior Council of the Magistrature. “It is staggering to hear such comments and so much contempt from a magistrate on whom our rights and freedoms depend. He is clearly out of his duty of reserve, "she comments, stressing the" sexual connotation "of the words. Finally, she laughs at the situation: "It is not impossible that we meet again during a hearing, that it will one day be in front of me when I plead ..."

Contacted by the Parisian, the Chancellery indicates for its part that these are "two scenes that are part of a more global context of tensions". "On the one hand there are lawyers who block entrances and on the other there are magistrates who want to work", we stress, recalling that on the same day, on this same forecourt, a magistrate claimed to have received a whim, struck by journalist Gaspard Glanz, founder of the media Taranis News.