Watching Michaël Chiolo chatting and smiling with one of his co-defendants in the dock before the start of proceedings on the morning of Monday, July 7, it was hard to imagine that just a few hours later he would become the 10th person in France to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Chiolo was widely expected to receive the maximum penalty in French law for his attack on two guards at the Condé-sur-Sarthe prison, in Normandy, on March 5, 2019. He repeatedly asserted his responsibility for the crime and his deep radicalization throughout the five weeks of hearings.
But that's how Chiolo is. Since the beginning of his trial before the Special Criminal Court in Paris, he had been forthright, taking full responsibility and openly declaring his total allegiance to the Islamic State group (IS). He was usually affable and seemed to accept his fate.
On June 27, he even made a shocking remark that may have sealed his legal fate, threatening the lawyer of one of the two guards he tried to murder: "Imagine (...) that you were in orange overalls [the outfits worn by hostages beheaded by IS]. If I was holding a knife, you wouldn't talk to me like that," he had said.
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