Two youths aged 16 and 18 beaten up at the Du Chaffault tram stop in Nantes, the evening of Emmanuel Macron’s election, May 7, 2017. One of them, Erwan David, still suffers from cognitive disorders. Since Monday, the Loire-Atlantique Assize Court has been looking into this case.
The four defendants appear free; the fifth died accidentally in the summer of 2020. They are aged 23 to 32. Far-right sympathizers, they had waited for the two friends who were returning home on bicycles to knock them down and hit them. They had taken them, wrongly, for anti-fascists, members of the ultra-left who would have chased them a little earlier in the evening. The first day was devoted to the personality of the defendants, their childhood, adolescence, their political commitment too.
The figure of the father for a long time at the heart of the debates for three of the defendants
Sitting on the same bench, the four defendants do not exchange a look or a word. In the morning, they listened to the personality investigators tell for three of them a failing or disappointing father. The oldest of the defendants – the one who refutes the role of leader of the group and the only one to deny the beatings – was never recognized by his father. Another, one of the two with a particle name, very quickly cut ties with his father: an alcoholic man who likes to dress as a woman. This the “repel”. This boy, who obviously does not want to say too much about him, confides that “it was probably because of his father that he joined an extreme right-wing movement”, for he specifies, “to prove things.” One of his comrades explains “having no happy memories with his father”. A former soldier who insults him, calls him “loukoum” when he gets overweight in college days.
None of them liked school. One attended a military high school, another an off-contract Catholic school. One left college because he regrets “his leftist side”. Corn all will succeed in passing diplomas and all work regularly : joiner-carpenter, mason or surveyor. They also evoke couple lives “blooming”. Two have children.
Links with far-right movements now broken according to them
If they joined the GUD, far-right movementit’s for “the spirit of camaraderie”, “to protect the sovereignty of France” or even details one of them because “the family is close to the FN.” The one who has more serene relations with his father, tells him that he got closer to Action française, a royalist and nationalist organization. Corn three affirm it, from now on, they are not any more militants of any movement that it is. The fourth said nothing.
The two who face the heaviest sentence – 15 years – tell of a detention that went wrong and made them think. They work with a psychologist. Blond beard and tattoo in the neck, the oldest of the defendants, was nicknamed the “good viking facho” in prison. “I took a step back on a lot of things”, he explains. And to continue: “I won’t change all my ideas, but I want to live them in a peaceful way.” The tone is calm, calm, far from the image reported a few minutes earlier by the president. That of a violent man both on the sidelines of a football match, he is a supporter of PSG and during a demonstration to oppose the ultra left.
“I wasted my life and that of the victims”, one of the defendants this Monday afternoon
During this first day of hearing, some defendants expressed remorse, apologies to the victims. “I wasted my life and that of the victims. I have nothing to complain about, I have to assume”, said one of the defendants. The verdict is expected Friday evening. This Tuesday will be heard in particular the police officer who carried out the investigation.