Toulouse. A former employee of the municipal majority sentenced for homophobic insult towards Antoine Maurice
By Guillaume Laurent
Published on
updated on 17 Nov 22 at 12:15
500 euros suspended fine, 800 euros to be paid to Anthony Maurice in compensation for non-pecuniary damage, and 1,200 euros for legal fees… This is what has just been sentenced on Wednesday November 16, 2022, a former collaborator of the political group of the municipal majority of Toulouse, by the Paris Criminal Court, for “homophobic insult” against the environmental leader of the Archipel Citoyen list in the last race on Capitol Hill.
“As ugly as (s)a tarlouze at the top of the list”, he said
This employee of the majority group had commented on his personal Facebook profile on the night of Thursday June 25 to Friday June 26, 2020, two days before the second round, an interview published on Toulouse News of François Piquemal, then running mate of Antoine Maurice, embellished with a message containing injuried people against the future deputy of the 4e constituency of Haute Garonne. But also homophobic slurs targeting the head of the Archipel Citoyen list, which was opposed to Jean-Luc Moudenc… two days later. He thus considered that François Piquemal was a candidate “as put as (his) tarlouze at the top of the list”.
A key complaint
In the process, François Piquemal had denounced “the collateral effects of the nauseating and deleterious campaign orchestrated by Mr. Moudenc. He no longer keeps his collaborators, and today, it’s going too far. The same afternoon, two days before the second round, he had tabled a handrail for “public insult”, a procedure that he “ultimately did not pursue”.
Antoine Maurice, he had not commented on this case at the time, but had filed a complaint for public slurs based on sexual orientation.
“A personal attack” for the criminal court
On Wednesday, the Paris court where the case was judged therefore revealed that “these proposals are offensive to Antoine Maurice (…) and the meaning because of his sexual orientation”.
“The remarks, which degenerated into a personal attack, cannot be justified by a political controversy or any climate of tension specific to the electoral campaign then in progress, which is not otherwise demonstrated by the defendant”.
Still according to the court, “the excuse (…) which the defendant seems to rely on by invoking the ‘provocations’ he allegedly suffered during the electoral campaign cannot be invoked for the offense of public insult on account of the orientation sexual”.
Antoine Maurice brings out the old files on Jean-Luc Moudenc
Contacted by Toulouse news, the municipal councilor EELV reacts: “I am delighted that justice was able to condemn this action of the gutter campaign led by Jean-Luc Moudenc and his teams by recognizing the homophobic nature of this publication of the collaborator of his group”. By the way, Antoine Maurice brings out the (old) files on the Majority and his ex-rival on Capitol Hill:
“This decision is a continuation of that of 2020, where I had already been cleared of any prosecution by the Court of Cassation in the case opposing me to Jean-Baptiste de Scoraille, Deputy Mayor of Toulouse, who had owed me for public defamation and public insults when I had alerted him by a Facebook post about his participation in a demonstration against the opening of the right to marriage for all, wearing his chosen scarf. in 2016, Jean-Luc Moudenc himself marched at the head of the processions of the Manif pour Tous, a militant organization against equal rights, but without his elected scarf.
In the end, concluded the elected official, “these decisions strengthen my determination not to give in to homophobia, which has no place in our rule of law, as the courts have reminded us”. Considering that “Toulouse is a city that has always been one of openness, equality, fraternity”, he promises: “I hear keep these values alive who looks like him.”
Laid off, his contract “was not renewed”
Remember that just after the controversy caused by these insults, Jean-Luc Moudenc himself had condemned these “unacceptable proposals, from which I totally dissociate myself”. The said employee had “been notified of a layoff as a precautionary measure” by the group of outgoing mayor (ex-LR), who will finally be re-elected two days later, and “disciplinary proceedings” had been initiated against him.
“His long-term contract will determine expired on the day of the municipal election and was not renewed”, specifies today Pierre Espuglas-Labatut, president of the group, who also judges that “homophobia has no place in public debate”.
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