Thursday, February 27, the ECHR rendered its judgment concerning the responsibility of France in the death of Rémi Fraisse, an environmental activist killed by a grenade during a demonstration in the Tarn in 2014. She points to certain failures.
Eleven years after the death of Rémi Fraisse during an order to maintain order, the verdict fell. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France for violation of the right to life this Thursday, February 27, 2025. The young botanist and an environmental activist died in 2014, at the age of 21, after being affected by an offensive grenade launched by an officer of gendarmerie. Rémi Fraisse participated in an event to oppose the construction of the Sivens dam, in the Tarn, but the gathering had turned to the confrontation between activists and the police.
In its judgment, the ECHR points the responsibility of the French State and in particular failures in the supervision of the demonstration which degenerated and in the military response to the latter. She believes that “the level of protection required” to counter the risks posed by “recourse to a potentially deadly force” has not been “guaranteed”. It also underlines the “gaps of the legal and administrative framework then applicable” and the “failures of supervision in the preparation and conduct of disputed operations”.
Concretely, the ECHR does not judge France guilty of the death of Rémi Fraisse, but partly responsible. His conclusion was that which the Toulouse administrative court had already rendered in 2021 and confirmed the Toulouse administrative court of appeal in 2023. At the time, French justice had recognized “the state-free responsibility” by relying on article L. 211-10 of the internal security code according to which the State “is civilly responsible for damage and damage resulting from crimes and crimes committed, Armed or unarmed crowds or rallies, either against people or against property. ” Étienne Noël, the lawyer for the family of Rémi Fraisse, had popularized the decision withHereformerly France Bleu : “Clearly, that means that the state is held responsible not for the use of weapons during this demonstration but for the fact that there is a collateral victim”.
No criminal trial for the death of Rémi Fraisse
The CEDH’s decision confirms France’s responsibility in the death of Rémi Fraisse, but it does not seem to decide on the responsibility of the environmental activist who had also been recognized as first instance and on appeal by French justice. Which had estimated that the young man “could not ignore the danger of the situation” and deemed him responsible for “faulty imprudence”.
With this judgment the series of administrative trials in the Rémi Fraisse case ends. Note that the administrative component is the only one to have been dealt with by justice, since no criminal trial took place. Judicial information had been opened after the death of the environmental activist for “violence by a person depositary of the public authority who led to death without intention to give it”, then reclassified as “manslaughter”. But after the investigations carried out by the neighboring gendarmerie, the investigating judge had concluded that a dismissal, confirmed in appeal and in cassation.