Six months suspended prison sentence was required, Wednesday February 28 in Paris, against the far-right YouTuber Papacito, tried for insults, incitement to hatred and call for violence against the mayor of a village in the South-West, who had to be placed under police protection.
The prosecution does not intend to "play the thought police", but, in this case, the 38-year-old videographer, real name Ugo Jil-Gimenez, has "well and truly crossed the yellow line", estimated the deputy prosecutor Cédric Le Grand, before the criminal court.
For the magistrate, who also requested a fine of 3,000 euros, Papacito "contributed" to "arousing the relentlessness which fell on the mayor" of Montjoi, a village in Tarn-et-Garonne with less than 200 inhabitants . The elected official had been the subject of numerous death threats.
In the long incriminated videos, posted online in November 2022 and then in May 2023, the videographer took sides in a neighborhood conflict over the access path to a farm. Papacito, whose YouTube channel has since been closed, appeared as a fervent supporter of a pig breeder and accused the mayor, Christian Eurgal, of allowing himself to be corrupted by a Briton, a “lord”.
“Deviants” must be “executed”
Long extracts from the videos were played at the hearing. We hear the far-right videographer compare the English to “game”, criticize a municipal decree using, according to him, a “lexical field of tarlouze” and explain that “deviants” must be “executed”.
In a second video with a deliberately grotesque staging, Papacito's cronies attack a character disguised as a "weasel", who ends up raped and then killed. On the stand, the videographer explained that this “mascot” represented two distinct characters, a “municipal weasel” and a “country weasel” symbolizing “republican corruption”, but that only the second suffered the simulated violence.
He claimed "excess", a "goofy" spirit and a "humorous" tone, with all the excesses that go with it", and claimed that he was being attacked on the form rather than on the substance, since he is not being prosecuted for defamation for having accused the mayor of corruption.
The videographer wanted to start a “debate of general interest on the distress of the farmer in the face of finicky regulations”, argued Pierre Egea-Ausseil, one of his lawyers, who pleaded for acquittal. The court will deliver its decision on April 26.
