It is a letter of a few lines that Piotr Pavlenski perceives as "an insult and a direct threat". Dated July 6, 2020 and signed by investigating judge Laurence Lazerges, it reminds the Russian artist of its obligations.
The man has been indicted for "invasion of privacy" and "distribution without the person's consent of a recording of words or images of a sexual nature", since he broadcast on the Internet intimate videos of Benjamin Griveaux then candidate for mayor of Paris. Piotr Pavlenski is also suspected of "aggravated violence" after a fight on December 31, 2019 during a "post-twilight" party organized by his friend, the lawyer Juan Branco.
In this context, those who have changed the fate of the race for mayor of Paris must take care. "I kindly ask you to justify me of the respect of the obligation of psychiatric care to which you are compelled within the framework of your judicial control", notes the examining magistrate, who specifies to the artist that he must imperatively "Send proof of psychiatric care every two months". And the judge recalled that "any willful failure to comply with the obligations of his judicial review" risks entailing "a measure of placement in pre-trial detention".
"A measure as useless as vexatious"
For Piotr Pavlenski, "by this letter, the investigating judge declares that by default I am already mentally ill". In fact, the Russian does not intend to submit to this "situation of forced treatment", which he judges "much more serious than a simple procedural requirement which I refuse to fulfill because of my bad temper".
In a flight sent by email, Piotr Pavlenski compares his situation to that of victims of totalitarian regimes, "when everything that did not conform to the ideology of the regime was recognized as degenerate , sick , and required sterilization, correction , isolation, expulsion or liquidation. "And the Russian artist to evoke Germany in the 1930s, the Soviet Union or the United States in 1851" when the slaves who tried to escape from slavery were diagnosed with psychiatric addiction (Editor's note) : alleged mental illness which would have caused the slaves to escape) and were also treated with chopped toes ”.
Despite his wrath, care obligations - whether psychiatric or intended to end an addiction to alcohol or drugs - remain very common measures in France in the event of judicial control.
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Contacted, the lawyer of Piotr Pavlenski sees, for his part, in this psychiatric care “a measure as useless as vexatious. My client refuses to submit to it ”. According to the letter from the investigating judge, he has until July 15 to prove to the justice system an ongoing treatment.