HE is a very ordinary racist. The only unusual thing about Mickael Freminet seems to be his first name, a version of the French Michel inspired by American television series and common when he was born, 22 years ago.
Freminet is the main defendant at a trial which opened last week for the racist murder of a 29-year-old Moroccan, Brahim Bouarram, whom the accused allegedly pushed into the River Seine in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Unable to swim, Bouarram struggled madly in the current for some 150yd before drowning.
On May 1, 1995, Freminet had been among several dozen skinheads at the tail end of the annual Bank Holiday march through Paris by thousands of members of the National Front, which culminates with a rousing speech in front of the Opera by party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. The march came during voting in the presidential election and everyone was waiting to see whether Le Pen would advise his followers to vote for the Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin or for Jacques Chirac, Le Pen's most reviled enemy on the right.
By the time Le Pen was speaking, Bouarram was already dead and Freminet and three of his friends had scrambled up from the Seine quayside to rejoin the march. Later that day, instead of savouring the political importance that should have been his, Le Pen was having to answer questions about a murdered Moroccan.
He reacted furiously, accusing journalists of trying to sully his party and assuring public opinion that the murderers could have nothing to do with it. Over the next few days, it is the National Front as much as a gang of four skinheads who will be in the box.
Freminet risks a 30-year jail sentence while his friends face up to five years' jail for running away from the scene of the crime and failing to assist the drowning man.
Last week, the court tried to ascertain what sort of a man Freminet was. Only 18 at the time, he had travelled to Paris on May 1, 1995 from Rheims aboard one of the many free coaches hired by the National Front for the purposes of the march. One of five children of a vineyard labourer, Freminet grew up in a hamlet of 60 people. He left school early, served an apprenticeship as a joiner but failed to qualify, and signed up as a parachutist before he was actually due for National Service.
He was asked why he chose the parachutists.
''On account of the sport and because I thought it would cure my shyness. But it didn't work,'' said Freminet, whom friends described as ''impressionable''.
The accused was never a card-carrying member of the National Front. But he did carry around party stickers, mixed with gangs of extreme right-wing skinheads, and told his girlfriend he voted for Le Pen. He had joined in two previous National Front marches and the year before had left the main march to go ''baiting queers'' as he described it, on the banks of the Seine. The murder started the same way, until the skinheads found a more interesting prey.
Next week, the court will hear testimony from other skinheads on the May 1 march and who, like Freminet, had been bussed in from Rheims. Also under fire will be National Front wardens. They will be asked to explain why Freminet and his friends were allowed to board coaches and why they were permitted to leave the march.
Le Pen can be reassured on one count. Freminet is unlikely to tell the court he still supports the National Front. Asked last week for his political opinions, he replied: ''I never think about politics. I never think about much.''
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