the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office requests the referral of twelve people to the criminal court

The National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) has requested a trial before the criminal court for 12 ultra-right people suspected of having prepared a plan to attack the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron in 2018, franceinfo learned from a judicial source on Thursday 8 September, confirming information from AFP. It is now up to the examining magistrate to decide whether or not there will be a trial and whether it will be before a criminal court or before an assize court.

This request for referral to the criminal court and not to an assize court shows that, after four years of investigation, the prosecution considered that the charges against the suspects are misdemeanors and not crimes. Initially, he had opened an investigation for “criminal terrorist association”, a fact judged at the assizes.

These 11 men and this woman are suspected of having prepared a ceramic knife attack against Emmanuel Macron during a walkabout during the commemorations of November 11 in Charleville-Mézières, in the Ardennes, on November 7, 2018, knowing that the ceramic is not detected by the security gates.

It was a former timber merchant, 62 years old at the time, Jean-Pierre B., who had fomented this plan, without knowing that he had been under the surveillance of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) for some time. days because of his very virulent remarks against the president on encrypted messaging. Two days before the commemorations, he had left Isère with another man to join Bouzonville, in Moselle, a small town near Charleville-Mézières, where he had found two accomplices and had spent the night with them.

The police had arrested all four of them the next morning. They quickly confessed, according to information collected by France 2 after the arrests. At present, 12 people therefore risk being tried before the criminal court.