Sentenced in 2020 to six months in prison for racist violence and insults, Bastien Chalureau appears on appeal in Toulouse on Tuesday.
The issue caused a stir in the middle of the Rugby World Cup, forcing the player to speak out. Sentenced to six months in prison in 2020 for “acts of violence […] committed because of the victim’s race or ethnicity.”, Bastien Chalureau appears on appeal, Tuesday, November 14. The French international disputes the racist nature of the attack on two former Toulouse rugby players.
“Bastien Chalureau does not contest the physical harm, the existence of this fight. On the other hand, there is a contestation of the racist motive of the facts with which he is accused”, David Mendel, lawyer for the Montpellier player, told AFP. The 31-year-old rugby player denies throwing “How are you guys?”, as the plaintiffs assert. If the defendant and his two victims came to blows on January 31, 2020 at the end of the evening, in the center of Toulouse, it was following an exchange of words in a bar, earlier in the evening, assures the lawyer.
A version of the facts challenged by the civil party’s lawyer, Me Laurent Sabounji, who denies the existence of a prior meeting: “In the parking lot, my clients heard racist insults and then they were attacked. It’s not a fight. It’s a gratuitous attack. It all started with a blow from behind to one of my clients”he emphasizes.
Half an hour of play at the World Cup
Bastien Chalureau will be present at the hearing. “Racism is not Chalureau’s values“, insisted his lawyer. Without waiting for his trial in 2020, he was fired by his employer, Stade Toulouse. At the time unknown to the general public, he then signed for Montpellier, where he revealed himself at the highest level, winning the European Challenge in 2021 and the French championship the following season.
As the opening of the Rugby World Cup approached in September, the affair resurfaced following accusations from elected officials of La France Insoumise (LFI), leading the head of state to express yourself on the file. Emmanuel Macron then estimated that in the event of confirmation on appeal of the judgment, he “would be preferable” that he no longer wears the XV of France jersey.“I am not racist”, the player defended himself, in tears during a press conference, since the Blues training camp at the beginning of September. During the World Cup, Chalureau, called up to compensate for Paul Willemse’s injury, played half an hour against Uruguay.