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Editorial Lyon
Published on Jan 26, 2026 at 5:22 p.m.
The Rhône Assize Court pronounced this Friday, January 23, 2026 twenty years of criminal imprisonment against a father from Saint-Forgeux (Rhône), 40 minutes from Lyon, who killed his 32-year-old neighbor with a bullet to the abdomen over a “parking dispute”.
The fight gets out of hand and leaves one dead
Alexis was actually shot dead by Mehdi on the night of June 11 to 12, 2022, around 1 a.m. Despite the rapid intervention of emergency services, called by the shooter himselfthe death of the victim was noted early in the morning.
The afternoon of the tragedy, Mehdi had in fact decided to take his three children at the village “hunting festival”. While he called them “to come home”, Alexis allegedly “told him to close [sa] mouth “.
After “putting his children to bed”, Mehdi went back to the “hunting party” to “find out why this person was angry with him” when he knew her “neither from Eve nor from Adam”. But the father finally changed his mind and turned around at the sight of the “group of friends” in which the man was then.
As he “laid down” in his bed, Mehdi then saw Alexis at the foot of his door “looking” at his home. “In a panic”, he grabbed “two loaded weapons” that he had been collecting for several months to “dissuade” him.
The “first shot fired into the air” did not, however, scare away Alexis, who grabbed the weapon. In the fight, the father finally fired a second shot “in the abdomen” of Alexis, who had this time succumbed to this “very serious injury”.
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A parking space at the origin of the tragedy
Three and a half years later, Mehdi was tried by the Rhône Assize Court in Lyon for this “murder drunk manifest”: this man who moved to the village in 2018 had consumed “six to seven beers and whiskey” that evening.
The investigation established that it was a “parking dispute” which crystallized the tensions between the two: on his return from the “hunting festival”, Mehdi had “parked his car under the porch, which prevented the inhabitants of the Vert Luisant passage [situé derrière le porche et où habitait Alexis, ndlr] to access their parking lot.
An accusation that this former boilermaker-welder, now at the RSA, firmly denies, for whom his car simply had “a clutch problem” which prevented him “from going up the hill to [son] parking ».
“A phobic personality disorder”
And, if he “killed” his neighbor, it was “not voluntary at all”. A position that he maintained throughout these three days of hearing. According to him, “it must have been just a shot in the air and a leak.” “I never thought anyone would die that night. No one deserves to die, no matter what they’ve done. »
Mehdi actually had an anxiety attack that evening, as he often does, when he saw his neighbor downstairs from his house. He does indeed suffer from a “personality disorder with a phobic dimension”, the experts confirmed. He had never really integrated into Saint-Forgeux because of his “aggressive”, “vehement” and “vulgar” behavior.
A provocation?
Mehdi parked in knowing full well that he will block access to the entire neighborhood, but particularly to Alexis” with whom he had “a clash”, remains convinced Me Léa Forest, for the civil parties. A neighbor had also confided that this parking was indeed “deliberate” to “make Alexis react”.
His anxiety attack was also quite relative since he had taken “the time to think about which weapon he will take, before taking the most powerful, the most impressive.” “It’s not to scare, it’s to destroy,” she deduced. “When you shoot three times and you stop because the victim was hit, you have homicidal intent. »
The death of the “village child” moves the residents
The death of Alexis “took away the entire village” of 1,500 souls, according to her. There are indeed many who have come attend the trial of his murderer and to pay tribute to this “village child”, employed in a butcher and delicatessen and described as “joyful”, “attentive” and “appreciated by all”.
On the side of the Attorney General, this “intent to kill” is also in no doubt since the accused fired in a “vital area”. Moreover, Mehdi himself admitted during his criminal trial that he “knew that a tragedy was going to happen” the moment he left his home with these weapons that he had “learned to use on Youtube”.
A fragile psychological ground
Worried about the “social dangerousness” of Mehdi, who “could have directed his anger against any inhabitant of the village” and who “continues to attribute responsibility for the facts to the behavior of his victim”, the representative of the prosecution had therefore requested twenty-five years of imprisonment.
The defense lawyer, however, invited the jurors of the Assize Court to reclassify this “aggravated murder” as a simple “fatal blow” without intention to kill. Me Caroline Jourdrain painted the portrait of a man who “lost his footing in 2022”, when his wife “leaves him for good” and he plunges back into alcohol.
Mehdi then raises his three children in “unsanitary housing” in which “the floor is littered with filth”. It was also during this period that he became interested in “collector’s weapons”, which he bought legally online and which he kept “in a safe” at home.
20 years in prison
At the end of his three-day trial, his client finally received twenty years of criminal imprisonment.
“At the distance you shot [environ 40 cm selon les experts, ndlr] and with the area you aimed at, there was a homicidal will indisputable,” justified the president.
“It was not an accident” and the facts took place “for a reason which may seem particularly futile”. The amount of damages awarded to the civil parties will be decided at a subsequent hearing.
MJ et GF/ PressPepper
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