A French court has sentenced a 28-year-old man to four months in prison for slapping President Macron in the face.
Damien Tarel was quickly arrested after the swipe that caught Macron’s left cheek with an audible thwack on Tuesday, as the French leader was greeting a crowd.
The court in the southeastern city of Valence convicted Tarel Thursday on a charge of violence against a person invested with public authority. He was given four months in prison and an additional 14-month suspended sentence, and also banned from ever holding public office and from owning weapons for five years.
Tarel described himself as a right-wing or extreme-right “patriot” and member of the yellow vest economic protest movement. He shouted a centuries-old royalist war cry as he hit the president.
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