(AFP) A French court on Wednesday scrapped all charges against a man who helped migrants enter the country illegally, the final chapter in a groundbreaking case that defined so-called “crimes of solidarity.”
Cedric Herrou, an olive farmer in southern France who helped about 200 migrants cross the border from Italy, was given a four-month suspended sentence in August 2017.
He had brought the destitute migrants home and set up a camp for them. He was also convicted of sheltering some 50 Eritreans in a disused railway building.
France’s Constitutional Council later said Herrou’s actions were not a crime under the “principle of fraternity” as enshrined in France’s motto “Liberty, Egality, Fraternity.”
