This Sunday, October 16, at the Parc des Princes, PSG receives its best enemy, Olympique de Marseille, for a Classic, the shock of the Championship. Loïc G. gets up from his seat, jumps over a barrier and enters the playing area. He walks towards the goal and takes the post between his arms. “I entered the lawn of the Parc des Princes with a serflex to try to hang on”, andexplains the young man (32) six months later, on the eve of his trial at the Paris Court.
This committed citizen of Last Renovation, a campaign of civil resistance to fight against global warming, was quickly brought under control by the stewards. He hadn’t had time to hang on and had been evacuated by four men, four irons in the air and without putting up the slightest resistance, in less time than it takes to write this sentence. The interruption had lasted less than a minute, some players not even noticing his intrusion on the field…
Loïc G. had been evacuated without putting up the slightest resistance. (Baptiste Paquot/Baptiste Paquot)
After spending 40 hours in police custody, he learned that he was being prosecuted under article L332-10 of the Sports Code for disturbing the conduct of a sports competition by entering the competition area. He will therefore be judged this Thursday morning. The maximum penalty is one year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros. For the same act, he would have been sentenced to a fixed fine of 500 euros with the entry into force of the bill relating to the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2024, definitively adopted by the Senate on Wednesday. For having disrupted a stage of the Tour de France last July, six activists from this same group were sentenced on January 24 to a suspended fine of 500 euros each by the Auch criminal court.
A rally to support him scheduled for Thursday in front of the Tribunal
Loïc G. had also been the subject of a prefectural decree prohibiting him from going to a stadium and requiring him to report to the police station every night of a PSG match until the end of the season, i.e. one to twice a week. “We are contesting this prefectural decree before the administrative justice”, indicated his lawyer, Me Ollivier.
The thirties had been summoned last week to a police station to sanction a lack of score dating back two months. He had spent six hours in police custody and was released free, without prosecution. In a press release, Last Renovation expressed concern “the provisional detention of one of its citizens without valid and serious reason. This event adds to a long list of measures restricting the freedoms of citizens engaged in the social movement and applied indiscriminately by the police hierarchy in recent months.
“My client is stressed and impressed by the context of the hearing”, also indicates Mr. Ollivier. “When the facts took place, Loïc did not think that, six months later, the context would be this with regard to environmental activism. » They have indeed been in the sights of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin for several weeks and the events in Sainte-Soline. His lawyer will plead for release on the basis of the state of necessity. It can be recognized when a person commits a wrongdoing to ensure their safety in the face of imminent danger. A rally is scheduled for 8:30 a.m., in front of the TJ in Paris, to support the environmental activist. Other support: that of Agnès Ducharne, climatologist, who will come to testify to the climate emergency in court.