It is with the support of about fifty people, but in the absence of their victim, the former Minister of National Education, that the two teachers from Montargis who had sprinkled Jean-Michel Blanquer with whipped cream on June 4 in Montargis, were tried on Monday, September 5. They are sentenced to a fine of 300 euros each.
The two teachers, 51 and 57, were being prosecuted for “violence committed in a meeting”. They explain since their gesture, which occurred on the Montargis market on Saturday June 4, in the middle of the campaign for the legislative elections, having wanted to express their anger in the face of the former minister then candidate in the 4th constituency of Loiret.
Jean-Michel Blanquer absent at the hearing in Montargis
Jean-Michel Blanquer is neither present nor represented by a lawyer at the hearing before the Montargis court. A public hearing, whereas at the start the two men were to be judged discreetly, last June, according to the procedure of the plea-guilty, the preliminary recognition of guilt. But none of them had then presented themselves, hence this referral to the judges.
This Monday, September 5, denouncing an act “humiliating and violent”, the public prosecutor of Montargis requires a fine of 1000 euros against each of the two teachers. As well as the obligation to follow a course of citizenship. The two men were finally sentenced respectively to a fine of 300 euros. A sentence that will not be entered in their criminal record.
About fifty people, and Gérard Miller, to support them
During the hearing, Olivier and Christophe, the two defendants, explain their gesture, facing the judges. “It was a pastry attack, not violence” says Oliver. Christophe, his colleague, insisting on one point, when speaking before the judges leave to deliberate: “we love our job, our students, and we will continue to defend them”. Both also receive the support of the psychoanalyst and TV columnist Gérard Miller, quoted as a witness: “I have not known of any case, for two centuries, of pathology due to whipped cream”.
Several teacher unions had called for a support rally in front of the Montargis Palace of Justice, without supporting their gesture. Independently of this lawsuit, the two teachers are the subject of a disciplinary procedure within National Education.