A French driver is facing up to four months in prison for sticking his middle finger up at a speed camera.
TheLocal.fr reports the 46-year-old, who accepted he was speeding in the Loire department of central France in May 2015, denies giving the one-finger salute, known as the doigt d’honneur in French (finger of honour), to two speed cameras at Saint-Forgeux-Lespinasse and Bessay-sur-Allier.
“At that moment, I was talking to my girlfriend, and I was upset because she was talking about her ex-boyfriend. The finger was intended for her,” he is quoted as saying.
The public prosecutor’s office said that even though the driver had already paid his fines for speeding they pressed charges against him for “insulting a person tasked with a public service mission”. The crime punishes “words, gestures, or threats, writings or images of any nature… as to attack [the victim’s] dignity or respect afforded to the role they have taken on.”
But prosecutors claim it was the public service officials in Rennes who had to watch the images of his gestures who were insulted and they have demanded he be sentence to between two to four months in prison.
