OAP jailed for shooting gypsies

FRIENDS, neighbours and politicians have reacted with fury after a 73-year-old was kept in jail for firing his rifle at two gypsies he found on his property.

Retired market gardener René Galinier is in jail in Béziers awaiting trial for attempted murder after the two women were severely injured by his shots.

More than 400 people from his commune of Nissan-lez-Enserune in the Hérault joined the protest and called on procureur Patrick Mathé to free him.

They said there had been repeated break-ins in the village - Galinier himself had been raided three weeks ago and the robbers had fled with his war medals and his wife’s jewels.

Politicians from the UMP and Front National have joined the clamour to get him out of jail.

Galinier was wakened by the intruders while dozing last Thursday afternoon and, after calling the pompiers, went to get his gun.

He saw the two gypsies trying to get out of his property and fired at them, injuring one in the abdomen and the other in the groin.

The procureur said it was not a case of “legitimate defence” as Galinier was in no immediate danger and his actions were “totally disproportionate as they were in the act of fleeing”.

However, Alpes-Maritimes UMP member of parliament Lionnel Luca and Front National vice-president Marine Le Pen have protested against the sentence.

Mr Luca said he was “disgusted, that a man of 73 should be accused because he tried to protect himself”.

Marine Le Pen said it was “not justice”.

She said “honest people” felt powerless and abandoned and the public authorities “allowed delinquents to behave with impunity.”

Last May the appeal court in Paris threw out a bid to try a shopkeeper for beating up a raider who threatened him with a weapon. It ordered he be freed from detention.