Paris police chief Didier Lallement will have to face Manuel who lost an eye because of a tear gas grenade fired by the police. He has refused to be heard by the IGPN and instead filed a complaint against Lallement.
On November 20, Manuel and his lawyer Arié Alimi, have decided to file a complaint and to sue the Prefect of Paris, Lallement for “willful violence resulting in mutilation per person depository of public authority”.
The complaint targets Lallement for “undermining individual freedom” and “complicity in aggravated voluntary violence”. The day before, Manuel had stated that he refused to be auditioned by the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN) in charge of the judicial investigation.
In a statement issued by Ouest-France, Arié Alimi said that “his client refuses to be auditioned” by this service because, according to him, there remains doubt about “the impartiality of the IGPN which stifles cases of police violence”.
Manuel “also refuses to transmit the videos of the scene and the officials involved” and “request the immediate appointment of an examining magistrate given the criminal nature of the case,” added his lawyer.
Alimi also threatened the authority: “The videos of the officials will be released to the public within one week in the absence of designation of a judge.”
For its part, the Paris public prosecutor also launched legal proceedings, on November 18, for “violence by a person holding public authority with weapons resulting in a temporary interruption of work of more than eight days”.
Manuel believes his “life is at a standstill” In a testimony published on November 20 by Mediapart, Manuel and his wife expressed their feelings on the situation.
He has not yet been discharged from hospital, and the 41-year-old injured patient says he is still confused about what happened to him: “Why did the police shoot at me while I was demonstrating peacefully?”
He is traumatized by what had happened. “I lost my eye but not the memory, alas, and I constantly see the moment when the grenade arrives, but it was too late, I could not do anything. My life is at a standstill.”
Manuel believes that the situation could have been even worse for him: “When I think that the grenade could have exploded in my head and that I could have died or that it could have been my wife…” For her part, Séverine, the wife of the Injured Yellow Vest, is angry with the Prefect of Paris, notably by his comments made in the wake of the demonstrations on November 17.
“When I learned about the prefect who said that he was not on the same side as the Yellow Vests and assimilating Yellow Vests with thugs, I felt a rage that gives me the strength to fight today”, she said.
“He talks about camps, as if it were a war,” she added. Manuel is the 24th Yellow Vest to become a victim of police violence. The latter believes that “the Minister of the Interior can not say that the police respond to armed protesters[…] since the images [of his injury] speak for themselves”.
Lallement was caught on camera telling a Yellow Vest protester that he was not on their side.
Code de déontologie de la police nationale, article R. 434-29 – Devoir de réserve : "Le policier est tenu à l’obligation de neutralité".
Le préfet de police à une femme #giletjaune : "Nous ne sommes pas dans le même camp, madame".
Allô @CCastaner, c'est pour un signalement👇 pic.twitter.com/gxcprjY6wj
— Pierre Jacquemain (@pjacquemain) November 17, 2019
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