The mason who had fatally overthrown the mayor of the small town of Signes, in the Var, in August 2019, after illegally dumping rubble in nature, was sentenced this Friday to three years in prison, two of which were suspended.
“You are guilty of the charges against you, but it is an accident, manslaughter with the aggravating circumstance that you had traces of narcotics in your blood”, consumed the day before or the day before, insisted the president of the Toulon criminal court by addressing L., 25, who appeared free.
On August 5, 2019, in the middle of the afternoon, after a day of work without a lunch break, he was caught in the act by the mayor of the town of Signes, Jean-Mathieu Michel, 76, pouring along of a departmental road, with an apprentice, from the falls of facing stones which had been used to build a swimming pool.
At the helm on March 11, the mason explained that he picked up the rubble as soon as he was asked. Back in the vehicle, he then reversed to leave, unaware, due to the lack of rear window on his utility, that someone was behind his vehicle. He also did not know who the man was who had told him to collect his construction plaster, he promised. In the maneuver, the mayor, then on the phone with the municipal police to proceed with the verbalization, fell to the ground and was fatally crushed. “I’m sorry about what happened. It’s dreadful,” said the mason timidly. During his hearing by the gendarmes, the young man had testified to strong emotion, suffering from uncontrollable crying and vomiting.
Wild dumps, a scourge for mayors
It is “a failure, negligence, but not a voluntary, deliberate aggression”, “even less (the aggression) of a mayor because of his functions”, had estimated in his indictment the public prosecutor. The president of the court had recalled that it was by no means a case emblematic of the voluntary violence which currently overwhelms politicians. “If it had been voluntary, we would be at the assizes,” she insisted.
Because the death of “Jeannot”, mayor since 1983 of this small Provençal village, had aroused the indignation of many elected officials. The President of the Republic had promised to ensure “personally that in the face of incivility and the disintegration (…) of the sense of the State and the nation, the response is always firm”. He had sent a message read at the funeral, which had been attended by Minister Jacqueline Gourault and the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher. Jean-Mathieu Michel had been fighting for years against the wild dumps that swarmed on the plateau around Signes, and which are a real scourge for many city officials.
The lawyer for the mayor’s family, civil party, Me Jean-Claude Guidicelli, for his part pointed to the “selfish” behavior of the worker, who “tired”, “did not want to be fined and very want to leave”, leading him to perform this brutal reverse.
Compensation of 15,000 euros was granted to the son of Jean-Michel Mathieu for non-pecuniary damage.