Mayor attacked in Isère: his neighbor admits to the blows but denies the intention to kill

The 60-year-old man told investigators he had "lost his temper" over a dispute with the mayor since the roof of a municipal building collapsed onto a garden shed he owned, Étienne Manteaux reported at a press conference.

On Wednesday afternoon, village mayor Gilles Dussault was stabbed in the chest and arm with a bladed weapon. His attacker then returned with a vehicle that drove into him and his son, who had come to assist him. The two men managed to avoid the attack, and the car crashed into a wall, while its driver fled on foot, the magistrate recalled.

Hospitalized in critical condition with injuries to the "cardiac area," the 63-year-old mayor is out of danger and should be released from the hospital in the coming days, he said.

One of his neighbors was arrested two days later in the woods in the commune of Charantonnay, 14 kilometers from the scene of the attack, which was strongly condemned, including by President Emmanuel Macron.

While in police custody, the man admitted to hitting the mayor, who allegedly "looked at him with a sadistic smile." "There was a break in my mind," he said, while insisting that he had aimed for "the shoulder blade" and had "no intention of killing."

He also claimed to have driven back to the scene to see what he had done and that the mayor and his son had "thrown" themselves under his vehicle, the magistrate reported.

Speaking to investigators, he said that "it had gone too far and wanted to compensate the mayor, but he said that too quickly and played the victim," explained Étienne Manteaux. He repeated that he was "the victim of an injustice," citing the 2021 material dispute that had "become entrenched" due to a lack of solutions.

"What is salient through the interviews of the person in custody is truly a persecutory experience, a tendency to reinterpret what he is experiencing," insisted the magistrate.

The prosecution requested that he be charged, in particular with attempted murder of a person in a position of public authority, and requested, "given the seriousness of the facts," that he be placed in pre-trial detention.