At the Court of Appeal of Paris,
There was a sense of déja-vu this Friday, during the appeal against Alain Schmitt† accused of domestic violence by Olympic champion Margaux Pinot, with whom he had been in a relationship for four years. To the picture of the trial at first instancethe two former lovers performed diametrically opposed versions of the events of the night of November 28, 2021, without ever exchanging a single glance.
The case received media attention. after the release of the coach during his first trial in the court of Bobigny, on November 30, for lack of evidence. The prosecution appealed the decision. For several weeks, the Olympic champion and former member of the French team of judo had battled through intermediate interviews and press conferences.
This Friday it is in front of a full house of the Court of Appeal of Paris, packed with journalists and supporters, that the 43-year-old man appeared for violence that led to more than ten days of ITT [Incapacité temporaire de travail]† The 28-year-old woman, for her part, appeared at the bar as a witness.
“I never raised my hand to Margaux”
For nearly three hours, the two ex-lovers returned to their “merger, destructive” relationship, in the words of the attorney general, and to the night of events. That evening, it was about 2 am, when Alain Schmitt joined Margaux Pinot at his house in Blanc-Mesnil (Seine-Saint-Denis), after an alcoholic evening with friends. This is the lovers’ last night together before the coach flies to Israel the next day, where he is in charge of the women’s national team. A dispute arises between the two lovers who, since 2017, have mixed professional life within the club Étoile Sportive du Blanc-Mesnil and personal life. Because if this departure is a professional springboard for Alain Schmitt, it marks the end of his relationship with the young woman, but also of her trainer cap.
Standing at the helm, tight-fitting green polo shirt, Alain Schmitt returns to the moment when his former companion “explodes”. “Margaux was super pissed off, she blamed me for abandoning her,” he explains of his ex-girlfriend, who he describes as “very destructive to herself and to others”. The young woman throws herself at him, the two lovers fall and start a fight on the ground. They bump and roll through the apartment for minutes, the coach says.
Asked by the president about the “special” and “significant” injuries to the face of his former companion, the judoka swears they came from impacts against furniture or walls and assures that he never “raised his hand at Margaux.” It’s the fact that we hit the wall (…) It’s the hematoma that sank,” justifies the one who now trains Bulgaria’s national men’s and women’s teams after canceling his contract in Israel.
“If I hadn’t run away, I think I would have been dead”
A few minutes later, the sportswoman, ponytail and blue blouse, in turn steps forward in front of the bar and delivers a radically different version. During their argument, Alain Schmitt told her that he would “make a point of finding someone (a judoka) in Israel to beat her” and that she was “destructive,” says Margaux Pinot. “He pulls my hair, pushes me out of bed. He straddles me, he hits me,” she says. The young woman gets up, tries to escape him by going to another room. At that point he catches up with her and “hits her head on the ground two or three times”. ‘Then he’s going to strangle me. And there I say to him, “I love you! I love you! We’re going to get back together.” And he said to me, “I’ll leave you two minutes,” said the young woman, explaining that she did this so that he would leave her alone. She then claims to have fled and fled with a neighbor.
Asked by the president about her companion’s version, Margaux “refutes” Pinot: “I experienced the most terrible scene of my life. If I had not fled, I think I would have died under the blows (…) If I had been here today, it’s because I knew how to protect myself, he kicked me anyway, that’s for sure.
Inconsistencies and version changes
Then Alain Schmitt’s lawyers intervene to point out the inconsistencies and changes in Margaux Pinot’s version. In particular, the coach’s two advisers question her in a photo in the file, which shows a lock of hair placed next to a pair of scissors, implying that she would have cut it herself. The fuse, which was on the ground, was taken and moved by judoka Madeleine Malonga, justifying Margaux Pinot at the helm, explaining that her friend, who supported him in the days after the fact, had taken a photo to prove to preserve.
While he also regrets “the evolving statements” of Alain Schmitt and Margaux Pinot, the Solicitor General, who has “based on the lesions identified on the two protagonists”, believes that Margaux Pinot’s version “is largely confirmed by medical findings “Looking at the injuries, we have enough evidence to admit Mr Schmitt’s responsibility for the violence,” the magistrate added.
As in the first instance, a one-year suspended prison sentence was demanded. The decision will be made on June 10.
