Marcel Campion sentenced for public insult to Anne Hidalgo – archyde

He had called Anne Hidalgo “Bitch”. The former candidate for mayor of Paris and “King of the fairgrounds” Marcel Campion was sentenced Friday, October 29 to a fine of 500 euros for public insult to the mayor of Paris. He will also have to pay one euro in damages, for non-pecuniary damage, and 1,500 euros in procedural costs to Mr.^me Hidalgo.

The mayor of Paris had lodged a complaint in 2019 following the publication of an article in World reporting the words made by Mr. Campion, 81, during a public meeting organized as part of his municipal campaign:

“She’s downright a bitch. She said to me: “Me, I love fairgrounds. She just tried two years later to destroy us completely. I always wonder why. (…) She must be punished. “

Excellent at the start, relations between M^me Hidalgo and Mr. Campion had deteriorated after the opening of a preliminary investigation in October 2015, concerning the allocation of the location of the Ferris wheel, Place de la Concorde. The mayor of Paris then ended nearly thirty-five years of contracts between the successive mayors of the capital and the fairground, suddenly deprived of his Ferris wheel, but also of his Christmas market on the Champs-Elysées.

In June 2019, the Paris Court of Appeal canceled the indictment of the City of Paris for “Favoritism” and partially agreed with Marcel Campion by canceling his lawsuits for ” misuse of corporate assets “. In the meantime, Mr. Campion had become a staunch opponent of the elected Socialist, to the point of present against re-election.

One euro in damages

“The words pursued, which make use of a crude and basic insult likely to degrade the person concerned, and to show him contempt, especially since she belongs to the fairer sex, do not contain the imputation of no specific fact and are unquestionably offensive ”, said the court. For the latter, “These insulting remarks were addressed to Anne Hidalgo because of her status as an elected official since they were uttered in reaction to the decisions she had taken in her capacity as mayor”. They “Exceed the permissible limits of freedom of expression”.

“It is a satisfactory decision which reminds us that one cannot insult an elected representative of the Republic with impunity”, commented the lawyer of M^me Hidalgo, M^e Sabrina Goldman. “It is a reminder all the more important since it occurs in a period of loss of benchmarks and daily media outrage”added M^e Goldman.