The writer Yann Moix, prosecuted for insults and defamation for comments about police officers that had created a controversy in September 2018, was acquitted on Tuesday, September 26, by the Paris court. On September 22, 2018, on Thierry Ardisson’s program “Les Terriens du Samedi” on C8, during a debate around the book by journalist Frédéric Ploquin baptized Fear has changed sideswho mentioned the work of the police. “fear in the stomach” In a context of insecurity, Yann Moix had accused the police of “victimize”. Two police officers were also present on the set.
“Their favorite targets are the poor and disadvantaged sectors. And I myself, like all French people, am often a spectator of harassment practiced against harmless people. (…) because indeed, with fear in your stomach, you don’t have the balls to go to dangerous places.”declared.
These comments provoked the ire of police unions and the then Minister of the Interior, Gérard Collomb, who filed a complaint. The Higher Audiovisual Council (CSA) – today the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) – had received more than 2,000 referrals from viewers. Shortly after, Yann Moix said “regret” of the “bad words”defending against being “anti-police”.
“Free right to criticize”
On Tuesday, the writer was acquitted for the first time of the charge of insulting the public administration. The press chamber indicates that his statements were part of a “controversial debate” brand “due to a certain familiarity”that allowed “Therefore, freedom of tone, exaggeration and provocation”. And this, “especially by Yann Moix who played the role of debater”. His argument was based on “free right to criticize”according to the ruling consulted by Agence France-Presse.
Yann Moix was also sued for defamation for comments made the following day on Europa 1, where he responded to the words of Gérard Collomb, who had described him as “rude in form, indecent in substance”. “The rudeness and indecency of Gérard Collomb (…)“I saw them in the baton-beating of immigrants in Calais all day long, when four, five, six, seven, eight police officers sometimes beat up a 16-year-old boy and beat him and gassed him.”declared Yann Moix.
The court ruled that these comments were not defamatory, because they were a “value judgment” of a “pictorial scene, formulated in general terms” and not a “specific fact that would be attributed to the national police” – precise fact that presupposes the crime of defamation.
