“I was out of control, I wasn’t myself, I didn’t know what I was doing anymore”had sworn Essia Boulares. The Paris Assize Court ruled, on the contrary, that the accused was fully aware of her actions and their consequences when she set fire, on the night of February 4 to 5, 2019, to a small pile of paper, fabric and wood in front of the door of his neighbor on the landing, causing the death of ten people in a fire which had finally ravaged the entire building at 17 bis, rue Erlanger, in the 16e district of Paris.
After three weeks of hearing and six hours of deliberation, Essia Boularès, 44, was found guilty, Thursday, February 23, of “willful destruction by fire resulting in death”, and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. prison – twenty-seven years had been requested the day before by the general counsel –, a sentence accompanied by a two-thirds security period and an obligation of care for fifteen years. “It is an extremely heavy sentence that leaves no hope, a sentence of social elimination”lamented Sébastien Schapira and Léa Hufnagel, lawyers for the accused, who remained impassive in her box when the verdict was announced.
Essia Boularès, according to the court, was “simply driven by anger and resentment towards her neighbour” came to tell her, by knocking brutally on her door, that she was listening to her music too loudly. His undeniable psychiatric disorders, put forward by his defense, neither excuse nor explain his gesture. “The facts of which she is accused must be linked to her impulsiveness, her intolerance to frustration and the effect of the toxic substances she has consumed, but in no way to any pathology whatsoever. » The idea of a possible attenuation of its responsibility given its fragility was swept away.
The psychiatric experts responsible for looking into the case of this woman at the borderline personalityhaving multiplied stays in psychiatric hospitals and suffering from addiction to alcohol and cannabis, had come to the conclusion that his discernment was not “abolished” at the time of the events, which would have prevented the holding of a trial, but “altered”which opened the door to a reduced sentence, which was finally rejected by the court.
“Half mad, double pain”
This alteration of discernment turned against the accused. Far from being perceived as a mitigating circumstance, it ended up being a reason to condemn it heavily. “In the eyes of the court, Mr.me Boularès has the disadvantages of normality and abnormality, the dangerousness of bothwe lovee Schapira. We consider that she acted like someone normal, but she scares like someone crazy. This alteration of discernment worries for the future, but we do not take it into account for the moment of the commission of the facts. » In his argument, the lawyer had summarized this paradox as follows: “Half mad, double trouble. »
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