I received blows, I treated myself physically, but psychologically, in the long run, it's hard.
Three weeks before the opening, Monday, November 9, of the trial of the three police officers accused of having hit him at the end of 2020 in his Parisian music studio, Michel Zecler confided his apprehension to a handful of media, including franceinfo, during a press briefing in Paris. "Throughout these six years, I tried to treat myself psychologically. I was starting to get a little better, but as [the trial] approached, I took a leap back. I have the feeling of going back to the beginning of the affair."
The life of this music producer, a black man, from Martinique, now aged 47, was turned upside down on November 21, 2020. That evening, around 6:30 p.m., while France was confined for the second time in the midst of a Covid-19 epidemic, Michel Zecler walked without a surgical mask in the street, towards his premises, in the 17th arrondissement of the capital. He sees a police car. Inside the vehicle, a patrol from the local police station, including a civil servant in plain clothes.
The brigadier and two peace guards saw him, then decided to check him for not wearing a mask and suspicion of cannabis consumption, due, according to them, to the smell around him. “I have always said it, there has never been a smell of cannabis emanating from me,” retorts, six years later, Michel Zecler.
Images that cause shock
The rest takes place inside his recording studio. According to the version of the three police officers, Michel Zecler refuses the check and enters the airlock. “While we tried to intercept him, he dragged us into the building by force,” wrote the officials in their report, which franceinfo was able to consult at the time.
In this airlock, Michel Zecler received, in four minutes, nearly 30 blows, with fists, feet and batons. Other police officers are called in for reinforcement. One of them threw an MP7 tear gas grenade, which caused him to be referred to a criminal court. The beating of Michel Zecler also continues in the street, where he again receives numerous blows.
A video surveillance camera records everything. The images, revealed five days after the events by the media Loopsider, caused a shock to the highest peaks of the State. “They shame us” and are “unacceptable”, reacts Emmanuel Macron. And above all, they contradict the version of the police, who filed a complaint on the evening of November 21, 2020 for rebellion and violence against a person holding public authority, an investigation closed without further action.
They claim in their report that Michel Zecler dealt them numerous blows and that he even tried to grab one of their weapons. Confronted with video surveillance, they finally reconsidered their version of the facts during the investigation.
“Unjustified relentlessness”
Today, Aurélien Laperson, Pierre Plantier and Philippe Tondeux are accused of having "obviously falsified reality": they appear for two weeks before the Paris criminal court for forgery of public documents, in addition to being tried for willful violence in a meeting and with a weapon. Philippe Tondeux and Aurélien La Personne spent three weeks in pre-trial detention at La Santé prison in Paris before being released under judicial supervision. All three face up to 15 years of criminal imprisonment and a fine of 225,000 euros. Contacted by franceinfo, their lawyers did not wish to speak, preferring to reserve their statements for the hearing.
During interrogation, Philippe Tondeux admitted to having punched and kicked Michel Zecler, according to the indictment order consulted by franceinfo. “Bad gestures”, motivated, according to his explanations, by fear, when he felt the door behind his back move. Because in the basement of the music studio, there was at that time a group of nine young men, who went up the stairs to try to intervene, after hearing the music producer calling for help. Five of them have joined as civil parties and some will be heard during the police trial.
Taking up more or less the same argument as his colleague, Aurélien La Personne maintained “that he was afraid for his life”, when he heard the group of young people trying to open the door. As for Pierre Plantier, he said he headbutted Michel Zecler "under the influence of panic", before recognizing, during his last hearing, that it was "not justified". This is what they are accused of: the investigating magistrates considered that the blows carried out by the three police officers “were not necessary and were part of an illegitimate action”.
Five years after the events, the conclusions of the Defender of Rights, Claire Hédon, who had taken charge of the case, were in the same direction, concluding that there were multiple ethical breaches on the part of the police officers who had made "disproportionate use of force" and "unjustified relentlessness" towards Michel Zecler. She had demanded that the police officers in question appear before a disciplinary council for serious ethical breaches, pointing out that their report "did not accurately reflect the course of the events".
The racist dimension debated at the hearing
“In their reports, they started to tell another version of the story, which could have sent me to prison for a long time,” laments Michel Zecler, who believes that the police officers’ words changed because “the videos appeared quickly”. “They are ready to say a lot of things, including false ones, in order to be able to defend themselves,” points out the forty-year-old, who says he is preparing “psychologically” to hear “horrible lies”.
His intention is also to talk about the racism of which he says he is a victim. Because Michel Zecler claims to have been treated as a “dirty nigger” by the police officers who beat him, which the officials have always formally denied. The CCTV recording cannot confirm or deny, as only the images were recorded, not the sound. Thus, in their order, the investigating judges considered that “the incriminating evidence” was “insufficient to establish the racist dimension of this violence”. While specifying that their decision "neither postulates nor affirms that Michel Zecler's statements on this point are insincere".
“I was really insulted, so I will speak about it at the hearing.”
Michel Zecler
at franceinfo
Serge Money, one of the music producer's lawyers, recalls that the law allows a court to consider this type of offense if it emerges from the proceedings, including if it had not been included in the indictment order. "Everything suggests that words were said. Which ones were pronounced? Certainly not those of a poem by Baudelaire... So what are the terms used? It escapes no one that Michel Zecler is black, so we are entitled to believe that racist remarks could have been expressed", argues Serge Money to franceinfo.
“I will go to the end of my fight despite the difficulty”
“The police did not only hurt me, they also tried to reduce my life to pieces,” said Michel Zecler. “Before this story, I didn’t know what depression was. I say it even though I don’t necessarily accept it,” he confided in a La 1ère podcast. His physical injuries, including craniofacial trauma, a scalp wound and a complete rupture of the tendon in his left arm, caused him to be incapacitated for work for 45 days.
His lawyer wants the number of ITT days to be re-evaluated, because “it does not seem to correspond to what Michel Zecler is experiencing”. Serge Money, who hopes that this trial will allow his client "to regain fullness and peace", called at the hearing two witnesses, the host of Skyrock Fred Musa and the rapper Stomy Bugsy, relatives who will be able to speak about the victim.
"There is certainly nothing more difficult than being afraid of the people who are there to protect you. You fear that violence will fall on you at any moment, you can no longer live peacefully."
Serge Money, lawyer for Michel Zecler
at franceinfo
For his part, Michel Zecler wants the three police officers “to be tried and sentenced commensurate with the seriousness of the acts committed”. “I would like justice to happen. Not only for me, but for all our cases in reality,” he emphasizes. Because in six years, the music producer has provided support in other cases of police violence, to the victims, or to their families. He went in 2024 to the trial of the police officers convicted of violence against Théo Luhaka, who has lifelong consequences. “The trauma and repercussions are similar in these cases,” believes Michel Zecler.
The aim of the press briefing organized on October 14 was to highlight several police trials planned for the middle of the fall, such as the case of the death of Cédric Chouviat, whose father was present, and that of Jean-Paul Benjamin. But also appeal hearings scheduled for November, for a police officer sentenced to ten years in prison for the murder in 2020 of Olivio Gomes, a 28-year-old motorist, and for two others who seriously injured Nordine by bullets in 2021, who came to testify.
These trials will take place at the same time as that of the police officers tried for the violence against Michel Zecler, who will therefore not be able to attend the hearing in support, nor receive theirs. The music producer still remains determined to move forward: “I will go through with my fight despite the difficulty, perhaps that will allow me to turn the page.”
