(Paris) Four ultra-right activists were sentenced Wednesday to sentences ranging from six months suspended to seven months in prison for a homophobic attack in Paris while they were “celebrating” the victory of the far-right National Rally in the European elections.
In police custody, these four young men asserted “paramilitary claims and affiliation with the GUD (Union Defense Group, a far-right student union, Editor’s note) and the National Rally” (RN), according to the prosecution. .
Two of them were sentenced for violence to five and seven months in prison, with the court ordering their immediate incarceration. They may, however, request to serve their sentence under an electronic bracelet.
The other two received a six-month suspended sentence for “failure to assist a person in danger”.
Among the latter is Gabriel Loustau, 23, a GUD figure and son of Axel Loustau, former activist in this student organization, former RN elected official and formerly close to its figurehead Marine Le Pen. “Your father says he’s proud of you,” the president said, summing up the personality survey.
On the stand, the four students refuted any participation in the facts. But they could not explain why one of them had written a message shortly after the time of the attack, saying his friends had “smoked a gay.”
During their arrest and their arrival at the police station, they stood out with military chants or phrases like “you will see when Bardella (Jordan, president of the RN Editor’s note) is in power, when Hitler returns”.
The defense, for its part, pleaded for acquittal, considering the evidence “too fragile”.
Despite the context, justice must “keep calm” and not give any “political coloring” to its decision, argued Me Roland Poynard. Only “objective facts” count, and not the opinions of the defendants, added his colleague, Me Capucine Collin-Lejeune.
The RN is widely favored for the early legislative elections which will be held in France on June 30 and July 7, after the dissolution of the National Assembly by President Emmanuel Macron following the results of the European elections.