France Sentences 8 Leftist Guerrillas to 10-Year Terms in Prison

PARIS —  Eight Direct Action urban guerrillas were sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison on criminal conspiracy charges, the maximum allowed under French law.

Four of them were gaunt and pale after a 74-day hunger strike. Jean-Marc Rouillan, Nathalie Menignon, Joelle Aubron and Georges Cipriani have threatened to fast to the death over a demand to be jailed in adjoining cells.

Among the other defendants were Regis Schleicher, already serving a life term for his part in the 1981 killing of two Paris police officers, and Italian Vicenzo Spano. Eleven other members or sympathizers of the leftist guerrilla movement received lighter sentences.

Direct Action has claimed responsibility for eight killings and more than 80 other attacks since 1979. Among the victims were Gen. Rene Audran, a French Defense Ministry official, killed in 1985, and Georges Besse, head of France’s Renault car company.

The stormy trial, which began Jan. 11 under some of the strictest security ever seen in France, was often chaotic, with defendants screaming abuse at the judges.

In announcing the sentences in the Paris Central Court, Court President Jacques Ducos said: “Any indulgence would be complicity. We must apply the force of law in sanctioning them without weakness and imposing severe sentences.”