Two supporters of Eric Zemmour were given suspended prison sentences on Friday for having broadcast videos in which they imagined, gun in hand, targeting Emmanuel Macron and the rebels.
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The disputed videos “exceeded the permissible limits of freedom of expression”, had estimated the prosecutor during the hearing before the Paris Criminal Court. She had requested a four-month suspended sentence.
Benjamin S., a 21-year-old soldier, and Alain R., a 30-year-old interim cook, were sentenced respectively to four and three months in prison, suspended and prohibited from carrying weapons for five and three years. The first was found guilty of incitement to commit offenses not followed by effect, the second of complicity.
Their conviction will be entered in their criminal record and they will have to pay jointly, in respect of non-pecuniary damage, 3,000 euros to LFI deputy Alexis Corbières and 5,000 euros to Raquel Garrido, his companion and former party spokesperson. Emmanuel Macron was not a civil party.
During the trial, the two defendants explained that they had made “black and bold humor” and pointed out that the offending videos had been made only to make their friends laugh and put online without their knowledge. Both had admitted having met at a meeting of presidential candidate Eric Zemmour (Reconquest!).
The disputed videos show a man wearing a “Well let’s see” cap, a language tic of Eric Zemmour erected as a slogan by his admirers, practicing with a sniper rifle in a shooting range. Well let’s see friends, who are we going to break out? From the young gaucho, from the young communist, from the young mental bougnoule”, laughs the young man, before opening fire. Rifle in aim, he then mimics the surprise – “Ah, Emmanuel Macron!” — and fires a second shot.
In another video shot at the same place, another young man, rifle in hand, explains “training to hunt wild Garrido” before firing, then shooting a second time, referring to LFI deputy Alexis Corbière.
Raquel Garrido greeted AFP with “heavy sentences which take into account the seriousness of the facts” and which “send a strong message to all this far-right movement.
In a press release published on December 22, Eric Zemmour had firmly “condemned” these videos.
Campaign clip: Eric Zemmour sentenced for “copyright infringement”
Far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour was sentenced on Friday for “copyright infringement” after the unauthorized use of film footage in his candidacy announcement clip, according to the judgment whose AFP obtained a copy.
Eric Zemmour, his Reconquest party! and one of his relatives, François Miramont, are ordered to jointly pay a total of 70,000 euros to the plaintiffs.
Among them, the Gaumont and EuropaCorp companies, the directors Luc Besson and François Ozon, the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers (SACD) or the beneficiaries of the director Henri Verneuil and the writer and screenwriter Jacques Prévert.
They had assigned Mr. Zemmour and his movement in mid-January for “counterfeiting” and “infringement of moral and patrimonial rights”.
In question, the unauthorized use of extracts from the films “Jeanne d’Arc” by Luc Besson (1999), “A monkey in winter” by Henri Verneuil (1962), “In the house” by François Ozon (2012) , “The Quai des Mists” by Marcel Carné (1938) and the documentary “Louis Pasteur, portrait of a visionary” (2011) in the announcement clip of this ten-minute clip, broadcast live on various channels on November 30, has been viewed more than three million times on YouTube.
In addition to the sums to be paid in compensation for the damage of “copyright infringement” and “attack on moral rights”, the Paris court ordered that the clip should no longer be broadcast with the extracts in question. This decision must be applied within 7 days, under penalty of a fine of 1,500 euros per day of delay thereafter.
On January 27 during the hearing, where the far-right candidate was not present, his lawyer Me Olivier Pardo had castigated an attempt at “censorship” and defended the use of video extracts “in the context of a short quotation”, claiming the inadmissibility of the procedure.
“Gaumont and EuropaCorp do not play politics, they make popular cinema, and we have never granted permission to use excerpts from any party,” replied the lawyer for the production companies, Me Thierry Marembert.
“We would have refused everyone (…), but being associated with someone who has extreme ideas is an additional prejudice,” he added.
Gaumont demanded 25,000 euros in damages for the rights to the film “A monkey in winter”, an additional 25,000 euros with EuropaCorp for “Jeanne d’Arc”, and the authors and before rights 5,000 euros each for moral rights .
In addition, several media, including Agence France-Presse, had strongly protested against the unauthorized use of their images among the 144 extracts used in the clip, without going as far as legal proceedings.
