France: Leniency for Femen
Prosecuted for defacing one of the bells of Notre Dame de Paris, nine members of the feminist group Femen were acquitted on September 10, 2014, by the Correctional Court of Paris on the pretext that there was not enough proof that the defacing was their doing. The public prosecutor of Paris filed an appeal of the acquittal the same afternoon.
On February 12, 2013, the Femen had celebrated Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation in their own way. They entered the building among a crowd of tourists, then took off their coats and climbed onto the platform where three bells were temporarily being exposed in the nave for the 850th anniversary of Notre Dame de Paris. Exposing their breasts as they always do, the Femen cried “Pope no more!”, while making the bells ring with pieces of wood. The police found splinters over one centimeter long on the bell Marcel. With the estimate that was made, the rector of Notre Dame asked for 7,176€ in damages and interest for the repairs and 10,000€ for “the attack on the free exercise of the cult.” The Femen protested that they were not the cause of the damages, claiming to have covered their sticks with felt.
At the trial on July 9, the prosecutor was lenient, dropping the charge of sexual exhibition and that of incitement to religious hatred. He demanded a fine of 1,500€ for each of the nine women.
In the end, only the cathedral guards were condemned to suspended fines. In a chronicle published on September 10 on the website reinformation.tv, one can read: this condemnation “shows the perfect moral and judicial perversion of the judgment. We can certainly count on our country’s justice to lead the most mortal of revolutions.”
Philosopher Bertrand Vergely pointed out on the website atlantico.fr on September 19, that “on the same day, two wives of police officers were condemned to nine months in prison, six of which are suspended, for profaning a mosque in Mayotte by placing a pig’s head in front of the building.” He drew the conclusion that “fighting against Christianity is a defense of secularism, while defending Islam is a defense of diversity.”
(sources: apic/le monde/le Figaro/reinformation.tv/atlantico.fr – DICI no.301, dated Sept. 26, 2014)
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