Journalist Hugo Clément announced on Friday, via his Twitter account, that he had been indicted for defamation and public insult at the request of Benjamin Tranchant.
The businessman obviously did not appreciate the report "Sur le front" on the hunting enclosures produced by Clément Lanot, and broadcast on France 5 on May 23, 2021. In the report, Benjamin Tranchant, president of the family group of casinos, had opened the doors of one of its hunting enclosures in Sologne.
He has at least two, one in Chaumont-sur-Tharonne (Loir-et-Cher), the other in Langesse (Loiret).
I have just been indicted by an examining magistrate for having… made a program on hunting in enclosures.
Here's how a wealthy heir, owner of a hunting enclosure, obstructs justice with a gag procedure to put pressure on a journalist.
pic.twitter.com/9SP4NBz4Ov
— Hugo Clement (@hugoclement) January 13, 2023
“Finally not finding the program to his liking, because he is very critical of his hobby which consists of shooting locked animals, he decides to file a complaint for defamation, after having given us formal notice to delete the parts concerning him (we refused)”, denounces Hugo Clément, who broadcast the passage in question.
In the list of comments rejected by Benjamin Tranchant are the title of the subject as well as the journalist's comments on the practice of hunting in the enclosure.
From "in this type of place hunters come and shoot deer or wild boar while they are imprisoned behind fences and have no chance of escaping" or the mention of an award for each animal, “the shooters choose (ing) their prey from a catalog”, to more innocuous phrases such as “a dozen friends, rifles slung over their shoulders, take their places on the watchtowers”.
"These are only purely factual sentences, based on images shot on the property of Benjamin Tranchant, with his agreement", defended Hugo Clément on Friday.
“A gag procedure”
“The procedure has no chance of succeeding.
This is a pure gag procedure.
Benjamin Tranchant is very wealthy and therefore can afford to incur expenses just to impress.
But this encumbers an already overwhelmed justice…”, estimates the journalist facing the social network on which he is very followed.
In defamation cases, the indictment is automatic if the author of the impugned remarks is identified and it is proven that the words were actually spoken.
It does not indicate that the investigating judge considered, in view of the documents presented to him, that the accused person should appear before the courts to answer for the charges against him.
In the report, Benjamin Tranchant claims to respect the law on hunting enclosures, and repeats twice that he "does not hesitate to take (his) right".
To give you an opinion, I give you the extract in question here ⬇️ https://t.co/FS39FZdBcw
— Hugo Clement (@hugoclement) January 13, 2023
In May 2021, ten days before the broadcast of the report, the businessman had been sentenced by the Montargis criminal court (Loiret) for practices deemed illegal.
Justice, seized by the French Office for Biodiversity, accused him of having installed at the entrance to his estate in Langesse, a funnel system to attract game with food, without it being able to come out.
The person concerned had denied, saying that his game wardens were recovering his escaped animals.
He had been fined but above all the deprivation of his hunting license for two years, a sanction suspended by the appeal he had immediately made to have the case re-tried.
This trial at first instance and the France 5 report had taken place long before the National Assembly adopted, last October, then the Senate in December, a bill limiting the fencing of natural areas in Sologne, this forest reservoir straddling the Loir-et-Cher, the Loiret, and the Cher.
This is not the first time that Hugo Clément has been sued for defamation.
Another complaint was filed against the militant journalist of the environmental cause at the beginning of December by the trainer of animals for the cinema Pierre Cadéac, accused of animal abuse after, in particular, having been filmed punching an eagle.