The maximum sentence in France's penal code is life imprisonment without parole. This was the sentence handed down to 25-year-old Brahim Aouissaoui on Wednesday, February 26, for the murders of three people and attempted murders in connection with a terrorist plot targeting seven people, including five municipal police officers who came to arrest him in Nice's basilica on October 29, 2020. The court justified the sentence on the grounds of the "absolute violence" of the act, Aouissaoui's lack of "desire to reintegrate or reform" and the level of danger he poses.

This is only the second time such a sentence has been handed down in a criminal court in France. Before Aouissaoui, only Salah Abdeslam, one of the terrorists of the November 13, 2015, attacks, had received it. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (PNAT) requested the exceptional sentence on Wednesday. Defense lawyer Martin Méchin described it as "a death sentence that does not say its name," "a euphemistic death sentence" and even "the death sentence of hypocrites."

It took courage and self-sacrifice on the part of Méchin and his colleague Marie-Alexandrine Bardinet, who were both appointed by the court to defend Aouissaoui. Their client faced a barrage of accusations, and throughout the hearing adopted a position of summary justification of his acts, without ever agreeing to go into the details of how he prepared or executed them, nor expressing the slightest regret or the slightest word of compassion towards the victims' relatives.

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