A four-month suspended prison sentence was requested on Thursday against the young woman who had caused a massive fall of runners on the route of the Tour de France by holding up a sign for her grandparents in last June.
The representative of the public prosecutor’s office (prosecution) Solenn Briand pointed out that the 31-year-old young woman, prosecuted for “endangering others” and “involuntary injuries”, had “recognized the dangerousness of her behavior” and that she had expressed regret.
Judgment was reserved for December 9.
Dressed in pants and a navy blue sweater, the young woman, unemployed and without a criminal record, had fled the cameras when she arrived at the Brest criminal court in western France.
His lawyer Julien Bradmetz, who unsuccessfully demanded the camera, presented his client as having “a fragile personality for many years”. “This fragility has been increased tenfold so that today my client is living through hell,” he said.
“Go opi-omi! – grandpa-grandma in German, her grandmother being of German origin – she had written in large letters on a piece of cardboard addressed to her grandparents, unconditional fans of the Grande Boucle.
It was June 26, in the town of Sizun, 45 km from the finish of the first stage of the Tour, part of Brest in Brittany. The young woman had brandished her sign as she encroached on the roadway, with her back to the peloton. Several runners, launched at high speed, had not been able to avoid it. The German Tony Martin, the first to fall, had involved in his fall many other cyclists.
Her message went around the world, but the consequences of what the 31-year-old called “foolishness” were severe.
‘Not a terrorist’
The Tour de France, which had initially announced its intention to file a complaint, finally gave up saying it wanted to “calm things down”.
“This lady made a huge dump which could have had even greater consequences but she is not a terrorist”, declared the director of the Grande Boucle, Christian Prudhomme, on the sidelines of the presentation of the route of the Tour 2022, which was also held on Thursday.
It “brought down about fifty riders, some of whom were forced to retire due to serious bodily injuries”, regretted Wednesday the international organization Cyclists professionals associates (CPA), civil party to the trial.
Several riders had been forced to retire, including the German Jasha Sütterlin (DSM) and the Spaniard Marc Soler (Movistar). The latter, winner of Paris-Nice 2018, had three fractures in his left arm.
“The damage suffered by the runners is physical, moral and economic. An athlete trains for months for a big tour and it is not acceptable that all his hard work, that of his family and his team be wiped out in an instant by the quest for popularity of those who should attend the event without becoming protagonists”, lamented the president of the organization based in Switzerland, Gianni Bugno.
The only association of riders recognized by the International Cycling Union (UCI) nevertheless made it known that it was only asking for a symbolic compensation of one euro, saying that it only wanted to draw the public’s attention to the need to adopt ” a responsible and respectful attitude towards the runners”.
The images of this woman, dressed in a yellow raincoat, wearing a green cap and brandishing her placard with a broad smile on her lips before being hit by the peloton, had gone around the world, unleashing strong media interest. It was only four days after the events, and when a call for witnesses had been launched, that she went to the gendarmerie of the city of Landerneau, in charge of the investigation, no longer supporting the media pressure .
“The respondent expressed a feeling of shame, fear of the consequences of his act. She says she is distressed by the media repercussions of what she calls ‘her stupidity’”, underlined at the beginning of July during a press conference the public prosecutor of Brest Camille Miansoni.
