The prosecutor’s office has appealed the sentence that sanctions four former employees of the manager of the high-voltage lines RTE for interventions in the electrical network during a social conflict, the Paris prosecutor’s office reported this Friday.
The criminal court of the capital sentenced on March 28 four thirty-somethings for “obstructing the operation of an automated data processing system” and imposed fines of 5,000 euros on one, 10,000 euros on each of the other three, without registration in the prison. record.
The court did not follow the requisitions of the prosecution, which had asked for 6 to 8 months in prison suspended and a fine of 7,000 euros during the trial at the end of February. It also acquitted the defendants of the other two cyber crimes they were accused of.
militant action
The four men, since fired, were prosecuted for having programmed the interruption of “remote control” in a total of 25 electricity substations in Hauts-de-France in the summer of 2022, during a labor dispute over wages at RTE.
They spoke of a militant, “symbolic” and “traditional” action in this sector of activity. For the RTE management, who filed a complaint, they put the network at risk in a context of energy crisis.
The placing into police custody of employees of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), usually responsible for cases of terrorism or espionage, had outraged the CGT and RTE employees.
Criticism assumed by the defense and which the court partially accepted by canceling a series of investigative acts.
This had initially been opened for “sabotage”, a “crime detrimental to the interests of the Nation”, but the hypothesis of a “foreign services action” had been quickly ruled out in favor of a union action.
“Suppress the workers”
In fact, the court considered that the wiretapping of the employees as well as the exceptional extension of their police custody up to 96 hours were not justified.
At the hearing, the prosecution had defended the investigation and stressed that the referral to the DGSI was due to the fact that RTE is considered an operator of vital importance for the functioning of the country.
“The State at the service of capital to repress the workers!” CGT Mines Énergie said in a press release on Friday, reacting to the prosecution’s appeal. “The Public Ministry, far from being offended by the mobilization of the anti-terrorist services and the courts for acts of strike without consequences, wants to send the strikers to prison!”
The union, to which the defendants do not belong, had organized a day of mobilization on the day of the trial, with a rally in front of the court.
Source: BFM TV
