Adrien Quatennens, deputy of France Insoumise, announced last week that he was abandoning his functions as coordinator of the movement, after the handrail that his wife had deposited.
franceinfo: What is a daybook, what is its value and what are the differences with a complaint?
A daybook is used to report, to mark, the existence of facts. It makes it possible to indicate to the authorities that certain facts have taken place. Typically, you have been the object of threats, you go to the gendarmerie or the police station to report these threats.
Your neighbors are making a fuss, you put down a handrail. More frequently still, you leave the marital home, you report it via a handrail. Or if your spouse leaves the marital home, you do the same. It’s just going to serve to date the existence of a fact, it could be used in a later procedure, but it doesn’t go any further. Moreover, the person who is designated in a daybook will not be kept informed of this process.
How should you go about it?
Unlike the filing of a complaint – a pre-complaint can be filed online – you must go to the gendarmerie or to a police station.
Doesn’t that trigger a lawsuit?
That’s not his goal. But again, it might be useful in a future trial. The criminal lawyer Laurent Franck Liénard explains for example that he can use handrails as a bundle of clues to convince a magistrate.
But beware, if the police or the gendarmes consider that the facts reported in the daybook constitute an offence, they can themselves warn the public prosecutor who can initiate proceedings against the perpetrator.
The handrail is therefore very different from a complaint…
Yes, filing a complaint is a legal process that is intended to initiate legal proceedings. But the authorities will not be required to do so. If we want to be sure that proceedings will be initiated, we must file a complaint with a civil party. It must be filed with the dean of the investigating judges, and it is subject to the payment of a deposit.
Who is how much?
It depends on the facts and the fortune of the plaintiff, but generally between 500 and 1,000 euros.