When Valerie opened the door to her apartment around 10 a.m. on Friday, March 24, she didn’t expect to find herself in front of three police officers. “I asked them if it was a joke; This is the first time I have been arrested,” he says. Later she was detained and wrote Voice of the North.
He was first taken to a hospital center in the Saint-Omer area to be checked out, recovering from a hand injury. Back at the police station in the afternoon, Arques was told that he was suspected of writing “Macron trash” in front of the waste dump. “Wrong, I took the photo in front of me smiling,” he assures La Voix du Nord.
A very rare procedure
On the other hand, on his page on the social network Facebook, a message catches the eye of the police. It was posted on Tuesday March 21 and read: “For those of you who talk trash tomorrow at 1pm, the only place you find trash is always (sic) on TV”. The next day, Emmanuel Macron was to give a televised interview to the midday newspapers on France 2 and TF1. She denies wanting to use the term and pleads clumsily: “I created this publication, but I wanted to play on words and write “hard gold”, the editor changed, I did not edit before sending. Also, I did not quote him. This argument did not convince the inquisitors.
At 6:00 p.m., Valéry was presented to the prosecutor of the Saint-Omer court. He will be tried on June 20 for insulting a public authority.
“They want to make me a role model”
A police investigation was launched following a complaint by Guillaume Thirard, deputy head of the arrondissement of Saint-Omer. “I find offensive photos and posts and it’s my duty to report them,” he explains. For Valéry, things are clear: “They want to make an example of me. I am not a public enemy. On Facebook, he says, he has seen dozens of posts repeating this insult against the same head of state. According to La Voix du Nord, very few, if any, , have been prosecuted.
Valery considers “sharing a lot of videos of police violence or political violence, I often say what I think, but always within the law”. According to this image of the yellow vests in Audomarois, referring to the mobilization against pension reform, “we are in a period where intimidation is strong and it is directed at activists”. This does not affect his commitment. “We will continue to demonstrate and publish, but I will study very carefully,” he told La Voix du Nord. She will be sentenced to 6 months in prison and fined 22,500 euros, according to Sud Ouest newspaper.
