A 34-year-old French national will be discovering the nuances of the American legal system after he was charged with assault and interfering with flight personnel.
The criminal complaint against one Franck Lebrun said that he “did knowingly and intentionally assault and intimidate a flight crew member and flight attendant of the aircraft” during a flight from Nice to New York on Saturday.
Lebrun’s troubles started when the flight crew began to suspect that he was smoking in the airplane’s toilet. Delta Air Lines staff confronted him about it and told him not to smoke. It could have stopped there, but later in the flight he took another trip to the toilet – when “he was again instructed not to smoke.”
The complaint continued:
Lebrun appeared intoxicated and smelled of cigarettes and alcohol. Lebrun then approached a female flight crew attendant in an aggressive manner and pushed her away with both hands. When the airline attendant instructed Lebrun not to touch her, Lebrun pushed her away again with both hands.
Lebrun is then said to have unleashed a torrent of French and English expletives at federal marshal that intervened, before positioning his body in a fighting stance when two other air marshals approached him. It seems that fighting was not the Frenchman’s strong suit, as he was quickly handcuffed. En route to is seat in the back, Lebrun allegedly flailed about and managed to strike a marshal’s leg with his foot.
As he sat in the back, the report indicates that Lebrun continued to express his dissatisfaction with those around him by yelling in French words that translate to “I’m French, fuck you!” [The Age]
