Aurélien Chapeau, the ex-soldier tried for “terrorist enterprise”, sentenced to 9 years in prison

The Paris Criminal Court sentenced Aurélien Chapeau to nine years in prison on Friday January 28. This ex-military follower of neo-Nazism and weapons was tried in Paris for “individual terrorist enterprise”. Arrested in May 2020, this 38-year-old man was suspected of having disseminated messages in support of Nazism, acquired weapons and carried out research on places of the Jewish community. The 16th chamber of the Paris Correctional Court, judged the ex-soldier “guilty of acts of individual preparation to commit an act of terrorism“. This sentence, very slightly below the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison required by the prosecution, is accompanied by a two-thirds security period.

“The court does not read the omens, we are not here to find out whether or not you would have acted without the intervention of the police services”, said the president of the court when pronouncing the sentence. Retaining the possession of weapons as well as “the publication of racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic content”, he thus judged that the preparatory level of Aurélien Chapeau was “completely done” and of “high intensity”. “The Internet and social networks are not just a reservoir of hatred from which we draw an abundance of harmful propaganda”, concluded the president of the court, specifying that the beginning of “acknowledgement” by the accused “the dangerousness of his actions” had been taken into account.

Aurélien Chapeau indeed repeated for three days having “intoxicated with nauseating propaganda” with no other intention than to “to buzz” with his peers on the internet. He repeated that he had repented, without being able to elaborate on the substance. The intermediary who supplied him with illegal weapons without knowing the ideological context – and who was absent from the trial for health reasons – was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment, including five months suspended.