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Two of the defendants, Benoît Ducos (L) and Mathieu Burellier (D) arrive at the court of Gap to be judged on November 8, 2018 / AFP
"Spontaneous" demonstration or help with irregular entry? Up to four months in prison were demanded Thursday in Gap against seven activists prosecuted for helping foreigners to enter France, which they refute in defending an action of solidarity in response to the far right.
This trial became symbol in a department of Hautes-Alpes where refugees flock since last year, attracted many supporters of the cause of migrants: the police counted a total of 850 people in the day before the court.
Inside, an Italian (absent at the hearing), a Swiss, a Belgo-Swiss and four French, aged 22 to 52, incur ten years in prison and 750,000 euros fine. But the sentences sought by the prosecutor Raphael Balland, in the end, are much lower: six months suspended for five defendants without a criminal record; and twelve months, including four farms, for the other two.
"Everyone here can mobilize to defend his ideas, even the most radical, but without crossing the boundaries of the law," said the magistrate.
"There are legal ways to help illegal aliens, and there are illegal ways, there are legal ways to get them across the border, and illegal ways," hammered the one for whom affair has "nothing to do with joint and several delinquency".
At the bar, the defendants pointed out that on April 22, starting to demonstrate from Claviere to finish at Briancon, their intention had never been to cross the French-Italian border to illegals, but to react to the demonstration of hostility to migrants, the day before, by the group Generation Identitaire (GI).
Activists moved to Gap on Thursday, November 8, 2018, to support the seven people accused of allowing the entry of migrants late April / AFP
"There was a willingness to express our ideas, our dissatisfaction with the deployment, the eve Col de l'Echelle, Generation Identity, but also, more generally, against the militarization of borders." It was a simple demonstration There was no group of leaders, it was not an organized gang, we all demonstrated together, "says one of the defendants, Theo Buckmaster, 24 years old.
– "Pbadage in force" –
The accusation accuses them of having facilitated, that day, the pbadage of the border to a score of migrants mixed with the procession, by bumping into the forces of the order.
"Who benefited from this pbadage in force? To the Identitaires? To the anarchists? Did he advance the cause of the migrants or the legislation on the right of asylum? I will not answer it. But I am certain that this type of action does not advance the tranquility of society, "concluded the prosecutor before the defense pleadings.
The initial trial, scheduled for May, had been postponed until the Constitutional Council decided on the "crime of solidarity". In July, the Sages felt that in the name of the "principle of fraternity", disinterested aid to the "stay" irregular can not be prosecuted, aid "entry" however remaining illegal. What to maintain the prosecution, according to the prosecution.
The defendants came to the courthouse with applause, protected by two companies of CRS, the trial having attracted many supporters, local or from further afield.
"We can not punish solidarity, it is not possible (…) We are all criminals solidarity today and if they are condemned, we will be too," said one of them , Christian, of Toulouse.
At the beginning of the hearing, the defense lawyers had attacked the procedure on the form, "no objective element", according to them, can not justify the opening of a flagrant investigation on the event.
"A person of black color and of African origin in a demonstration is not necessarily a migrant in an irregular situation.This appreciation of the police officers is purely discriminatory," said Me Cécile Faure-Brac.
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