France: “You are good”: Four gendarmes sentenced for harassment

Four gendarmes were given suspended prison sentences by a Strasbourg court for acts of sexual harassment between 2016 and 2021 against a thirty-year-old colleague from the Strasbourg surveillance and monitoring group.

“An exemplary sanction should be spelled out, I think that’s it,” the victim’s lawyer, Delphine Gilbert, now 41, told AFP on Thursday. “This is a relief for my client who has had very little support for his line for so many months,” he added.

“She was in so much pain that she thought about killing herself with her service weapon. It’s been a long road for her, she’s not out of the woods and she’s still dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder to this day.

Obscene photomontages

Hervé G., Stefan H., Geoffrey K. and Jermaine Y., three superior officers and an Army colleague, were sued for allegedly making “degrading” “repeated comments or conduct with a sexually suggestive meaning.” Nature. or humiliating”, especially by broadcasting obscene photomontages in a WhatsApp group with the victim’s face added. They also sent him “constant” comments with very crude sexual connotations.

When the police came in the morning, reports France 3, for example, his colleagues started: “Before you say hello to me, you suck my dick”, “You are fine” or “I put my dick in bread for you, it will make you a sandwich”.

They were given suspended sentences of 18, 12, 6 and 3 months respectively, with the first three serving the same term of ineligibility.

Eric Ameet, the attorney for the four gendarmes, could not be reached for comment. The gendarmerie of the Eastern Defense and Security Zone did not respond to questions about possible disciplinary sanctions and the assumption of the cost of lawyers for gendarmes under operational security.

(AFP/RM)