Moroccan Man Lights Cigarette at Tomb of Unknown Soldier, Sparks Outrage and Prison Sentence

Hakim was tried this Friday in immediate appearance for violation of a grave. A former drug addict and suffering from bipolarity, he has lost his discernment capacity, according to the psychiatric expert who examined him in custody. The Paris prosecutor’s office had requested one year in prison, including six months suspended, against this man in his forties who lit a cigarette with the flame of the Unknown Soldier on Tuesday. But he will ultimately receive three months in prison with 18 months of probation, reports Le Parisien.

Of Moroccan nationality, the man who arrived in France in 1987 to join his father, and who has been working as a machine operator "for 20 years", recounts what happened on Tuesday. "Before, I used to sleep here and there like at the Bercy bus station. But I got my bag stolen," details this family man who lives like a homeless person during the week in Paris and returns to his home in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray (Seine-Maritime) on weekends.

That day, before lying down on the scaffolding not far from his construction site located near the Place de l’Étoile, he gets drunk "to exhaustion". "It’s been a year since I stopped. I’m a bit unhappy," regrets the man who has relapsed into alcohol for a month. "I had an urgent need to smoke," he continues. While taking a detour through the Arc de Triomphe, he lifts the security chain around the tomb, kneels on it to light his cigarette, puts the cord back and continues on his way.

"I did that without thinking. I didn’t know exactly what the tomb looked like, but I knew the memorial dimension," he says. The next day, the video of the scene becomes viral on Tiktok then on X. He is quickly identified by the police. The Moroccan has a heavy criminal record: 28 convictions for drug use offenses, burglaries...

During his trial, Hakim was effusive in his apologies: "I want to apologize to all the French, to the military, to everyone. What I did was nonsense... I regret it from the bottom of my heart. I love France." In addition to the main sentence, the prosecution requested that the Moroccan no longer appear in the districts around the Arc de Triomphe, that is to say the 8th, 16th and 16th. For his part, the Minister of the Interior had announced that he would withdraw his residence permit.