Piotr Pavlenski will speak on the brawl of December 31

It should have remained a stormy New Year's Eve in a luxurious 300 m2 apartment located in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

This fight between alcoholic revelers during the “post-twilight” New Year's Eve organized by lawyer Juan Branco finally became a resounding affair a few weeks later, when one of the protagonists, the Russian artist Piotr Pavlensky, published on his website a pornographic video of Benjamin Griveaux.

More than a year after this New Year in the beautiful neighborhoods, Piotr Pavlenki is heard for the first time on the merits by the examining magistrate who indicted him for "aggravated violence".

The Russian artist will have to explain himself about the stab wounds he is suspected of having carried out to two other participants of the evening.

One of them had been seriously injured in the face.

When we met him last March, Piotr Pavlenski had not denied the fight, evoking the provocations of a guest.

He admitted to having stabbed a protagonist in the brawl in the thigh, but denied the laceration of his opponent's face.

“I hit him with my fists but his friends came and grabbed me.

I took a few hits, nothing serious.

I took the knife that was on the kitchen table.

History to show that I could defend myself.

That's all.

Then I put the knife down.

The Russian artist had also claimed to have been hit with a bottle of champagne on the head.

According to our information, he should deliver the same story this Wednesday to the magistrate in charge of the case.

Another very different story delivered to justice

On November 18, E., the man who claims to have received a stab in the face, delivered a very different story to justice.

This December 31, 2019, the 40-year-old is spending New Years Eve with Juan Branco's editor and some friends.

A text message then invites them to join the evening held in the 6th arrondissement.

The newcomer is greeted by the media lawyer and is immediately provocative.

“I told him that I had already seen his face somewhere, explains E. to the magistrate who is investigating the case.

I told him

You don't get into political narcissism by chance?

"

“Very curious” about the profile of the guests in this apartment in this bourgeois apartment, E. asks a lot of questions “to find out who I was dealing with sociologically”.

He is also "prickly" in front of a teacher and his wife, "You are charming although a little old-fashioned charm", he says to this woman.

Several guests heard by the investigators indeed described E. as "an obviously drunk man who would have mounted a little heavy, unpleasant or even arrogant with the guests".

Juan Branco himself assured that the group with "anarchist ideas" had "come to be bourgeois" in the luxury apartment of the beautiful neighborhoods.

Police raid on a friend of Pavlensky's house

During the evening, this ambient tension does not prevent E. from engaging in conversation with Piotr Pavlenski.

He evokes the fire at the Banque de France and then asks the artist what he is working on.

“I exhibit bi…”, answers Pavlenski.

The discussion is sterile, the Russian does not seem very interested in his interlocutor and answers laconically.

“He wants to show me that he knows everything about my life, who I know, where I am.

He's weird, ”Piotr Pavlenski explained of E. when we met him.

“Get off then,” says E. “That's where he jumped on me on my left side […] I raised a boxing guard and pushed him away and kept him at bay.

Then people separated us.

"

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Understand everything about the two judicial files of Piotr Pavlenski

According to his account, E. moves away from the brawl, and hears shouting “there is a knife;

he stuck a knife in the leg of something ”.

E. then jumps on Piotr Pavlenski, tries to surround him.

The Russian artist then said he was hit on the head by a bottle of champagne.

According to E., on the other hand, it is he who is hit “on the face.

I have blood dripping down my eye and I think I lost an eye so I let go.

I return to the hallway with my face bleeding.

The forties has in any case received eight stitches.

At the time, E. refuses to file a complaint for “ethical” questions.

Worried about a possible complaint against him from Juan Branco, he finally went to the police station at the end of the day on January 1, 2020 and filed a complaint.

A police raid is organized at a friend of Pavlensky's, in the 11th century, where the Russian artist receives his mail. He is absent and the investigation is bogged down. The investigations really accelerated on February 15, after the broadcast of the famous video by Benjamin Griveaux: Pavlenski and his partner were finally arrested under the lens of a press photographer. Contacted, Me Yassine Bouzrou, Piotr Pavlenski's lawyer, did not wish to speak.