The poet Jean-Michel Maulpoix sentenced for domestic violence

Jean-Michel Maulpoix, Goncourt Prize for poetry in 2022, was sentenced Tuesday by the Strasbourg criminal court to 18 months in prison for domestic violence against his wife who, also prosecuted, was acquitted.

The facts related to several episodes of violence, “regular brawls” in the words of Jean-Michel Maulpoix, spanning a period from January 2020 to August 2023. Audio and video recordings were played at the hearing. The prosecutor had requested an 18-month suspended prison sentence against him, and a six-month suspended prison sentence against the wife. It was therefore partially followed by the court.

“We had a completely different attitude, I recognized my guilt, and my wife refused to recognize hers,” Jean-Michel Maulpoix, 71, told AFP. “It paid off for her, as she was not convicted. However, there were several converging testimonies, notably from our two children, who said without ambiguity that this violence was reciprocal.

The court's double decision is "difficult to understand", commented Clément Dezempte, Jean-Michel Maulpoix's lawyer, who spoke of a "double standard". “The decision to acquit raises questions, there were several objective elements which in my opinion attested to the guilt” of the wife, he told AFP.

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For Annabelle Macé, the wife's lawyer, who refutes this approach, her client only inflicted “defensive injuries” on Jean-Michel Maulpoix during the violence. Relaxed on the grounds of “self-defense”, her client, aged 46, “is satisfied and relieved to have been recognized as a victim”, she declared.

The Strasbourg public prosecutor's office indicated that it was studying the possibility of appealing this acquittal.

The couple, who have two children aged 14 and 17, are currently divorcing. According to both parties, the long-standing violence had started well before the facts mentioned in court.

In 2006, Jean Michel Maulpoix was sentenced to a fine for defamation, after having relayed on his personal website a testimony relating to police violence. A former student of the École Normale Supérieure of Saint-Cloud, associate professor of letters, he is also professor emeritus at the University of the Sorbonne Nouvelle.