“At the Saint-Cyr Schools, nothing happens like elsewhere,” observes General Francis Chanson, former director of student training, at the helm.
In particular because we train the future heads of the army there and, as such, we give them a bit of a slack in order to learn the autonomy and organizational capacity that part of the requirements for officers.
Without forgetting, of course, that of the sense of responsibility.
But, on the third day of the trial of the seven defendants tried before the Criminal Court of Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) after the accidental death of Jallal Hami, a cadet who died drowned in a pond, in 2012, during a "bahutage »From the Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan school (Morbihan), it is clear that it is not always easy to assume them.
Only one soldier decided to plead guilty.
When some former students point to the “exorbitant laissez-faire” of the hierarchy, the latter speaks of a “systemic problem”.
The realization of the “bahutage” sessions was the responsibility of the pupils “custodians of the tradition”.
The executives delegated and controlled a posteriori, without going into details.
"He's got the system right"
"I'm not trying to discard, but it was very difficult to change anything in the traditions, because there was strong resistance up to the highest level of the army," said General Chanson, whose the court recalled the exemplary course.
"Do you feel like you've served as a fuse?"
», Asks a defense lawyer.
“There could have been other people prosecuted.
A number of officers knew about it and are not here, ”he replies.
Removed from the army in 2019, ex-lieutenant colonel Hervé Wallerand, former battalion commander, insists: no, he did not know.
It was decided in 2007, well before his arrival in Saint-Cyr, to give more autonomy to the students.
He says he felt "betrayed" by them, forgave them without forgetting.
He would have fought "to change this system", while being powerless.
"The system is on the safe side", calls out the public prosecutor Philippe Astruc, taking up the framework document of the Saint-Cyr schools where, from the first page, the requirement of permanent security and the legal text appear. suppressing hazing.
"It is written there that an internal note must be sent to the formation commander before the sessions".
Why wasn't he asking for it?
"Hervé Wallerand confides that the accident still weighs on his conscience.
And for good reason, it was he who had known how to detect the potential of Jallal Hami and recruited him, knowing his exceptional career.
"Remorse is not just words"
“He was three years old when our house was strafed in the middle of the night.
In Algeria, we lived under police protection because my mother, a school principal, had stood up against obscurantism, ”said, very moved, Rachid, the victim's brother.
A refugee in France, Jallal was confronted with another violence, that of social degradation.
“We lived for a year without electricity and we ate thanks to the generosity of people”.
By dint of fighting, the young man nevertheless got away with work and got involved for the country.
How difficult then for this brother to hear those accused of immaturity speak.
“Let no one tell us that at 22, we are not aware of the risk.
The remorse is not only words, but also deeds ”.
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That a pupil could be sanctioned with three days of arrest for having distributed croissants in class but only fifteen for having contributed to the death of a man, "it is very painful to hear for the family", pleaded Me Camille Radot, lawyer for the civil party.
And his colleague, Me Jean-Guillaume Le Mintier, added that "the power to decide the fate of others when it is entrusted to bad or small hands can be destructive".
Since Jallal's death, transmission activities have been reformed and are better controlled.
