(Paris) Eleven people who harassed the French singer Eddy de Pretto online, after a concert in June 2021 in a Parisian church, were sentenced Monday in Paris to sentences ranging from three to six months in prison suspended.
These young men were condemned for messages describing the artist as a “gigantic fool” and accusing him of having “defiled” their Catholic faith by performing a song evoking homosexuality in the Saint-Eustache church, in the heart of the capital.
The criminal court also pronounced six acquittals [retrait des accusations, NDLR].
During the trial in early November, the 29-year-old singer came to testify to the devastating impact of some 3,000 messages that had targeted him on social networks after his concert.
“We will be there on each date to remind you that the army of God does not leave this kind of blasphemy unpunished”, “big bag of shit to defile our religion”, “down with the Republic which makes us sub-humans of this species,” proclaimed some of these posts on Instagram.
I was very afraid to leave my house, trouble sleeping […] depressive disorders, I could not understand this violence.
Eddy de Pretto, in his testimony
Presenting very diverse profiles but claiming, for the most part, their attachment to Catholicism, the defendants had claimed to have felt “humiliated” by the term “sodomite” used by Eddy de Pretto in one of the songs performed in the church of Saint -Eustace.
Some had also tried to justify themselves by rejecting any violent intention and by highlighting their desire to set up “a legal framework” for “the defense of our society”.
During the hearing, the prosecutor described their messages as “abuse of freedom of expression” and recalled that “blasphemy and attacks on religion are not punishable by law”.
Eddy de Pretto is “very satisfied” with the court’s decision, one of his lawyers, Mr.e Martin Lemery.
“The court recalls that one cannot with impunity engage in the digital lynching of a person whose public commitments, sexual orientation or personality have had the misfortune to offend certain extremists”, he added.
Putting into perspective the importance of the releases, the lawyer expressed the wish that this decision could “be a new stone in the jurisprudential building in the fight against discrimination and harassment of packs on the internet”.