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A 50-year-old man is facing potential attempted murder charges for defending his own life after a home invasion in the French city of Saint-Dié.
During the incident, five individuals smashed a window of the man’s home and entered.
When an intruder lunged at the man, the homeowner said he awakened, and in a panic, grabbed a knife and stabbed one of them in the chest. “I was in a panic. I grabbed what I had at hand. It was a gesture of self-defense,” he said to French media outlet Voges Matin.
The injured robber was rushed to the hospital and survived.
The prosecutor wants to charge the homeowner for attempted murder and has requested pre-trial detention.
The judge, however, imposed only judicial supervision, which suggests he believes the man acted in self-defense.
The five attackers have all been arrested and will stand trial in February 2026.
So far, not many details of the incident have been released, including the first names or nationalities of anyone involved.
The question is now being raised about how far homeowners can go in defending themselves, especially in situations where they are startled awake and are vastly outnumbered by suspects inside their home in the middle of the night.
The fact that the prosecutor is even considering charging the man shows just how drastically different self-defense rules are between Europe and the United States.
Similar cases have previously occurred in France. In 2023, a Frenchman from the town of Montargis became a national folk hero after he armed himself with a medieval longsword from his collection and began battling a gang of robbers who broke into his house.
In a video interview with news portal La Bonne Droite, Cédric Gallineau recounts that the incident began when he awoke one night and heard muffled sounds in his garage. After telling his wife to call the police, Gallineau, who is a collector of medieval swords, marched to select the appropriate longsword from his collection.
He then charged into his garage, where he stores a luxury car, and proceeded to swing his sword at the group of burglars. The men appeared to be shocked to learn they had entered the home of a bearded swordsman.
“As they came out, I would tap them,” Cédric said, using sword-fighting skills he had picked up over time.
During the video interview, he almost seemed disappointed by his foes’ lack of ability to counter his longsword attacks.
“They were pushing each other, it was chaos,” Cédric said.
Cédric was never charged in the incident, but police also never identified the suspects, and it remains unclear if any of them suffered any serious injuries.
