The trial of the sacking of the Arc de Triomphe will take place from March 22 to 27, 2021 in Paris. The Dijon lawyer Jean-Philippe Morel will represent the association “Halte au pillage du patrimoine archéologique” (HAPPAH), one of the civil parties.
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What better fight for a lawyer from Dijon than to defend the work of sculptor François Rude!
Jean-Philippe Morel did not hesitate when he was offered to be the association’s lawyer “Stop the looting of archaeological heritage” (HAPPAH) in the trial of the sacking of the Arc de Triomphe. The association brought a civil action following the degradations committed during Act 3 of the yellow vests on December 1, 2018. Among the victims of the wrath of the demonstrators: the plaster cast of the statue of Marianne “the Genius of the Fatherland »By François Rude, found broken.
The trial will be held from March 22 to 27, 2021 before the Paris Criminal Court.
This will be an opportunity for the Dijon lawyer Jean-Philippe Morel to find former colleagues, he who practiced at the Paris bar from 1999 to 2004. At 47, there is no question for the lawyer to do “of this trial, a political trial, the trial of the yellow vests”.
“For me, it is the trial of thugs, not that of the yellow vests” he specifies. However, the facts are serious: to attack the monument which shelters the flame of the unknown soldier by tagging it and to break the pieces which are there.
They did not choose the Arc de Triomphe at random: it is an emblematic rampage, a national desecration.
Jean-Philippe Morel, Dijon lawyer
A symbolic repair
The Dijon lawyer is aware that he will have in front of him a handful of yellow vests next to the 412 arrests carried out on December 1, 2018.
After two years of investigation, only 17 people were finally prosecuted either before the criminal court or before the police court. “Justice took its time and the investigation was very precise. Between the DNA samples taken from pieces of broken objects and the analyzes of video surveillance, we can say that the people who are being prosecuted were indeed there” concludes the lawyer.
Several charges have been retained : acts of entering or staying in a classified building, aggravated theft, concealment of aggravated theft, aggravated damage or participation in a group with a view to committing violence or damage.
These images have traveled the world. They shocked the conscience.
How to find a fair sentence when defending a building? A national symbol?
“It is necessary that there is a repair but, with HAPPAH, we will rather ask for something of the order of the symbolic euro.”
He has the confidence of the association with which he met in 2013 at the time of the Laignes Treasury affair. At the time, 2000 Gallic deniers had been found by looters of archaeological treasures.
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A republican commitment
Jean-Philippe Morel is a lawyer but he is also a municipal councilor at the town hall of Dijon and vice-president of Dijon Métropole, delegate to the inter-municipal security commission. His party: the radical party is he said “the oldest party in France, that of Jean-Louis Borloo, Edgar Faure and Clémenceau”.
“It is the radical party which installed the republic ignites it: the law on the associations, the separation of the church and the State.”
