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CRIME

Three face trial in France over assault of Brigitte Macron’s great-nephew

Three men are to be tried for allegedly beating up the great-nephew of French 'first lady' Brigitte Macron outside her family's chocolate shop in northern France, with a 16-year-old also facing prosecution.

Three face trial in France over assault of Brigitte Macron's great-nephew
The Jean Trogneux chocolate shop in Amiens, northern France, which is owned by the family of Brigitte Macron. Photo by DENIS CHARLET / AFP

The three adults were presented in court on Wednesday in the city of Amiens on assault charges, but their lawyers requested a delay to proceedings until June 5th, an AFP reporter witnessed.

The teenage suspect is set to go before a special children’s judge over the attack late on Monday by anti-government protesters on Jean-Baptiste Trogneux.

The incident has been widely condemned by French politicians, including President Emmanuel Macron who called it “unacceptable” while pointing the finger at his opponents whose “verbal violence” he suggested had encouraged the assault.

Increasingly fierce clashes during protests against Macron and attacks on the offices of local and national elected figures have sparked fresh debate about the political climate in France.

The country has been rocked by its biggest demonstrations in decades since the start of the year over Macron’s plans to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62.

Hard-left MP François Ruffin, one of the harshest critics of the president, said on Wednesday that Macron was partly to blame for the violence directed at politicians.

“It’s obvious that Emmanuel Macron has a responsibility because we have a social, political and democratic crisis and his only response is via the police,” Ruffin told the France 2 television channel.

The three adult suspects, aged 20-34, have been detained awaiting trial.

They are known to the police for previous assaults and violence, with the youngest living with a mental disability and the eldest living under the control of a legal guardian.

Four other people arrested after the attack have been released by police.

Brigitte Macron’s family have run the Jean Trogneux chocolate shop in the centre of her home city of Amiens for six generations.

Her great-nephew was returning to his apartment above the store when he was recognised by the protesters, who left him with several broken ribs, a head injury and a hand wound, according to his father.

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CRIME

Suspects in Paris Holocaust memorial defacement fled abroad: prosecutors

French police have tracked three suspects in last week's defacement of the Paris Holocaust memorial across the border into Belgium, prosecutors said.

Suspects in Paris Holocaust memorial defacement fled abroad: prosecutors

The suspects were caught on security footage as they moved through Paris before “departing for Belgium from the Bercy bus station” in southeast Paris, prosecutors said.

Investigators added that the suspects’ “reservations had been made from Bulgaria”.

An investigation was launched after the memorial was vandalised with anti-Semitic image on the anniversary of the first major round-up of French Jews under the Nazis in 1941.

On May 14, red hands were found daubed on the Wall of the Righteous at the Paris Holocaust memorial, which lists 3,900 people honoured for saving Jews during the Nazi occupation of France in World War Two.

Prosecutors are investigating damage to a protected historical building for national, ethnic, racial or religious motives.

Similar tags were found elsewhere in the Marais district of central Paris, historically a centre of French Jewish life.

The hands echoed imagery used earlier this month by students demonstrating for a ceasefire in Israel’s campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Their discovery prompted a new wave of outrage over anti-Semitism.

“The Wall of the Righteous at the Shoah (Holocaust) Memorial was vandalised overnight,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a statement, calling it an “unspeakable act”.

It was “despicable” to target the Holocaust Memorial, Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, calling the act a, “hateful rallying cry against Jews”.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the act as one of “odious anti-Semitism”.

The vandalism “damages the memory” both of those who saved Jews in the Holocaust and the victims, he wrote on X.

“The (French) Republic, as always, will remain steadfast in the face of odious anti-Semitism,” he added.

Around 10 other spots, including schools and nurseries, around the historic Marais district home to many Jews were similarly tagged, central Paris district mayor Ariel Weil told AFP.

France has the largest Jewish population of any country outside Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

The country has been on high alert for anti-Semitic acts since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel and the state’s campaign of reprisals in Gaza in the months since.

In February, a French source told AFP that Paris’s internal security service believed Russia’s FSB security service was behind an October graffiti campaign tagging stars of David on Paris buildings.

A Moldovan couple was arrested in the case.

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