Raucous Scenes As Air France 'shirt-ripping' Trial Opens

BOBIGNY, France, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News -27th Sep,2016) - Cheers and jeers marked the start of the trial on Tuesday of 15 people over a confrontation in which Air France workers angry over planned layoffs left two executives with their shirts shredded.

In the first day's testimony accused workers claimed they had been "convicted in advance" over the October 2015 attack, while one of the executives talked of the "humiliation" of having his shirt ripped off in public.

The trial over the incident, which made headlines worldwide, opened in a packed courtroom outside Paris with raucous scenes among backers of the defendants. Five of the defendants are charged with "organised violence" and face up to three years in prison and a 45,000 euro ($51,000) fine if convicted in the two-day trial.

The other 10 face lesser charges over the confrontation, which arose from a dispute over plans to cut 2,900 jobs under a restructuring plan that the airline has since scrapped.

"We've always been treated as guilty, they've convicted us in advance" on the basis of incomplete video and photo evidence, said Fabrice Lhermitte, one of the accused.

The court viewed a clip from footage of the incident in which a worker can be distinctly heard threatening human resources boss Xavier Broseta: "You've got millions, you're going to pay." Union activists at the trial cheered, while, banging his gavel, the judge warned the defendants' backers: "No demonstrations, no protests or I will have the court cleared.

This is not a show!" The court deliberated over whether the union activists had the right to break down the gate of the perimeter fence at the company headquarters near Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport.