AGRESSION This resident of Lussac near Libourne (Gironde) suffers from various injuries and eight days of ITT were issued to him
Illustration hunters. — SICCOLI PATRICK
- Xavier Gourgues claims to have been beaten up last Saturday by a group of hunters, after complaining of rifle fire too close to his dwelling during a search.
- The hunters refute this version, claiming that they hunted a kilometer from his home, and that they never hit him.
- An investigation has been opened by the Libourne prosecutor’s office.
Xavier Gourgues claims to have been dealing with “ a veritable human pack.” For hunters, it’s a fabricated story to ride the “hunting bashing”. This inhabitant of Lussac, a village located to a few kilometers from Libourne and Saint-Emilion (Gironde) claims to have been past to tobacco last Saturday by a group of hunters, after complaining of gunfire too close to his home.
“I got it really bad, says Xavier Gourgues àgrave; 20 Minutes. Today [Wednesday] I’m recovering, the bruises are getting smaller, but it still hurt my face, I’m dragging my paw, and my collarbone is sore.” Eight days of ITT were his. issued.
“I watched” my wife and we immediately understood that çwas going to shoot everywhere”
What happened? The 48-year-old man, a sturdy man of 1.85 meters and more than 100 kg, says he was “planting lavender” in his garden with his wife and five-year-old son, “when at all; suddenly, we saw tumbling down to the at full speed a veritable wagon of vehicles, made up of 4x4s and vans.” “I watched” my wife and we didn’t need to talk to each other: we understood right away that it was a search party and that &ccedhe was going to shoot everywhere. The dogs were dropped, and began to to get closer to our garden, which is 4,000 m2 and overlooks the valley of the vines.”
The rifle fire then started. “My son was in a panic, we thought we’d get one. I got fed up, because it was already over. produced last year, I went to at the end of my garden and I screamed with all my might jumping in the air: “Are you going to stop your bullshit? We’re fed up, there are people living here, you’re going to end up shooting us!” I got insulted back…”
”A burning smell! around the garden”
Xavier Gourgues assures that he had “a hunter at his disposal. less than forty meters” of him,“”two others on [his] left to the left; less than 200 meters, and four more further.” The legislation on the subject is very clear, and prohibits hunting in the area. less than 150 meters from the dwellings of the municipalities known as ACCA (communal association of approved hunting), which is the case of Lussac. “It’s a web of lies, assures Fernando Padrao, president of ACCA Lussac, also joined by 20 Minutes. We weren’t near his house, but one kilometer.”
Xavier Gourgues says he “continued; screaming, but çit didn’t stop them, çit fired and çit still fired.” “There was a burning smell. all around the garden, ça whistled from left to right, he continues. I said to my wife and to my son to quickly go back and hide in the house, I called the gendarmerie by giving them my address, then I went to look for my car to find the hunters who were at 500 meters.” Without waiting for the gendarmes, therefore.
« I was punched hard in the temple »
The resident and the hunters agree on one point: Xavier Gourgues honked; when arriving at their meeting. For the rest, two diametrically opposed versions clash. “They were posted at the top of a ditch, says the local resident, a first group of five hunters approached. me, then others joined them, and regrouped in front of them. me. I shouted at them on it, I asked them when were they going to stop their bullshit, I was insulted, threatened, and there was even one who told me that they had the right to hunt where they were. they wanted, when they wanted.”
It’s there; that the violence would have started. “There was one who twisted my arm, others were pushing me, I started to push them back my turn, but I never knocked. All of a sudden I took a big punch in the temple. I then wanted to photograph their license plates, but one of them took my cell phone, so I loaded it. like a mule and we fell with one of the hunters.”
that I got beaten up all over, I got kicked, punched, in the ribs, in the thighs, in the shoulder, in the face… And I took a bugle call too.”
He continues: “All I had to do now” wait for ça to stop. Then there was one who said, “Stop, stop”, but I still took two or three shots. There were a good 15 of them in all, although not all of them hit.”
“He hurt himself.” because he fell headfirst, support the hunters
For Fernando Padrao, who himself wore complaint against Xavier Gourgues, the latter “ with his vehicle on a group of hunters, when the hunt was over.” “He got out of his car and shoved five or six hunters, he was very upset, so I intervened to try to calm him down, he jostled me. telling me he was going to hunt me down like the others. He pushed me, I fell in the ditch with him, it’s there; that he is injured; because he fell headfirst with his glasses that broke, which cut him. He got blood when he got up, but no hunter got up. hand on him. He kept saying he was 220 pounds, that he was going to hunt us down, that we were just illiterate and drunk.”
After this sequence, several hunters would also have taken photos and videos of the scene and the victim. “At the time I was groggy, continues Xavier Gourgues. Then I heard the police sirens, and at the same time about ten cars left, there were only four or five left. When they arrived, the gendarmes asked me to to calm down, I was certainly excited; but I was still the victim.” “The gendarmes saw someone very excited, and they ordered him to stop. to return to his vehicle to calm down,” the president of the hunting association.
“What this man described about hunting conditions is impossible, argues his side. Guillaume Desenfant, the communication manager of the Gironde hunting federation, we will wait for the results of the investigation, but we are quite suspicious about the story he may have told .”
””I’m a real country guy, a local guy, not a neural”
Xavier Gourgues refutes on his side; to be “an anti-hunting. I’m a real country man, a local guy, not a neo-rural or a Parisian as I read it, even if everyone has the right to live there by the way.” ; Director of research in medical imaging, he has been living in his house in Lussac for a little over two years. “I’ve always lived with the hunt, but here it is. it was a beat, it’s a very special exercise, because dozens of hunters land at once with packs of dogs to encircle the beast and shoot it calibre.”
This resident feels that there should be better regulation of hunting conditions, which should “ a minimum of 500 meters from dwellings” “Here, we are forced to have these mobs and gunshots morning and night on weekends. We can”t walk around our house anymore,” been heard as part of the gendarmerie investigation opened by the Libourne prosecutor’s office.