On Sunday, a left-wing French politician was arrested for a tweet celebrating the death of a policeman who offered his life to save a captive woman being used as a human shield by a jihadist gunman in southwestern france last week.
Police arrested Stephane Poussier in his home in Normandy on March 25 after he posted a tweet celebrating the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame.
“Whenever a policeman is shot… I think of my friend Remi Fraisse,” Poussier wrote on Twitter, referring to a French botanist and environmental activist who was killed in a flashbang grenade explosion by French police during a series of violent clashes with protesters who opposed construction of the controversial Sivens Dam in 2014.
“And this time it was a colonel, great! Additionally, it means one less Macron voter,” he added.
Last week, Beltrame, a 44-year-old gendarme, took the place of a female hostage during a supermarket seige by 25-year-old jihadist Radouane Lakdim, a French citizen of Moroccan descent. Beltrame was shot and stabbed to death.
Poussier's tweets received severe backlash and his Twitter account was promptly disabled.
“Stephane Poussier is in custody since 11:30 this morning for justifying acts of terrorism after comments published yesterday on his Twitter account,” said local prosecutor David Pamart to AFP on Sunday. Poussier may be looking at seven years in prison and a $124,000 fine…
