They sentenced the man who caught … to 18 months in prison.

A French court sentenced Damien Tarel to 18 months in prison and four months of effective compliance, the 28-year-old who slapped the president Emmanuel Macron last Tuesday.

The accused was quickly arrested after the slap he gave the president, as the French leader waved to a crowd during a visit to a town in south-eastern France.

The Valence court found Tarel guilty of violence against a person in public authority and sentenced him to 18 months in prison, including fourteen exemptions from obedience.

The prosecution had requested 18 months in prison against him and the withdrawal of his right to vote for a maximum period of five years, in addition to vetoing his access to arms during this period and definitively prohibiting him from practicing. public functions.

More, The prosecutor considered the coup d’etat as an act of humiliation with which Tarel intended to degrade the image of the head of state and said he did not “understand the reasons” for committing the act. In addition, he considered that there was a risk of recidivism in the face of an attitude of “cold determination” which had manifested itself.

The unemployed youth was convicted in an immediate appearance trial held two days after the attack, which accompanied the war cry of the far-right monarchy: “Montjoie Saint-Denis! and “Down with Macronie!”. The attack provoked the unanimous denunciation of the entire political class in France and declarations of solidarity with the president.

The individual was arrested at the same time as another man who will be tried in the second half of 2022. Both were friends, neither had a criminal record and were partners of various local associations of martial arts, admirers of the Middle Ages and the manga universe.

Tarel’s lawyer assured the media before the judgment was handed down that his client was aware of his behavior and that he would not repeat the actions.

Macron’s word

The French president, who decided not to denounce his attacker, called the fact that he had to live as a “stupid and violent” act.

In this sense, he did not want to enter into the controversy over violence in politics and preferred to define what happened as “an isolated act”. “We must relativize but not trivialize, any public service deserves respect”, he claimed.

Macron insisted that “the real violence is that of feminicides, that of those who are assaulted when they return home”, and said that what he perceives in the country at the moment is “l ‘optimism’ for a return to life and work after much of the coronavirus restrictions end.

“A democratic society is a society which allows criticism, demonstration, voting, and it is a treasure. The counterpart of that is respect and the end of violence,” he concluded.