Emmanuelle Franck, attorney for Cédric Jubillar, before the criminal court in Albi, France, on October 16, 2025. SERGIO AQUINDO FOR LE MONDE
You will not experience Emmanuelle Franck's presence, nor her voice alternating between rigor, irreverence, tenderness and insistence. You will not feel the silence that greets it, nor the locked gazes, nor the weight of four weeks of hearings, nor the parade of faces that were called forth. All of that remained within the four walls of the criminal court in Albi, France. The words are only a pale reflection of the stunning closing argument Franck delivered on Thursday, October 16, in defense of Cédric Jubillar.
When she stepped up to the bar, four years of struggle were there with her. Franck has handled the case, alongside her colleague Alexandre Martin, since June 2021, when Jubillar was charged with the murder of his wife. She knows every line of the 30,000-page case file by heart. There is one more thing to note before following her statement: The defense scored points during the first two weeks of hearings, when faced with the procession of gendarmes, experts, and witnesses called to testify. Then came the time for questioning, when Jubillar had to answer alone, without his attorneys to shield him.
