On September 8, 2026, the New York State trial starts towards Luigi Mangione, suspected of murdering the CEO of United Healthcare, the most important personal insurance coverage corporate in the USA, in 2024. In France, a identical affair broke out slightly greater than a century in the past: the Muller Affair, named after a employee who killed a Common Electrical corporate supervisor after killing one of the crucial Common Electrical corporate managers. pension.
The occasions happened on February 14, 1922 in Paris. A tender twenty-year-old employee, crippled at paintings, named Marcel Miller, kills with a revolver the pinnacle of litigation at his corporate, Common Electrical Corporate. The information came about after the termination of his pension and the granting of a incapacity pension which he thought to be inadequate (towards 1,700 present euros consistent with 12 months), whilst the wound brought about by way of the amputation of his proper hand had now not but healed. Mueller additionally injured two policemen throughout the arrest. This information has a countrywide have an effect on. All of the press seized upon it, with greater than 100 articles showing within the days that adopted, to the purpose of reworking the development into an “affair”, which used to be briefly dubbed the “Muller Affair”.
Illustrated mag Le Petit, February 26, 1922. Gallica From information to social information
Whilst “broken faces” and warfare invalids wondered French society concerning the destiny of the maimed on the finish of the First International Warfare, the Müller affair turned into an actual social match. The hard work motion – political and industry union – and the very younger federation of disabled staff, took up the affair, to not justify the crime, however to sentence the Business Injuries Act of 1898. In line with them, it condemned to social demise and distress the ones it used to be intended to offer protection to, by way of giving deficient rents. Additionally they wondered, and highlighted, the abuses of personal insurance coverage and corporations on this space. In 1922, since Social Safety didn’t but exist, the incapacity insurance coverage device used to be within the palms of the personal sector, just like the present American healthcare type.
Beneath force from the media (published press then performed a job) and public opinion, the 1898 legislation used to be changed: first throughout a judicial inquiry in July 1922 and a number of other instances thereafter. As for Marcel Müller, he used to be in the end acquitted by way of the Jury on October 31, 1922, after a impressive trial that introduced in combination eminent clinical mavens, such because the psychologist Henri Wallon, and famend political figures, referred to as by way of the protection, corresponding to Joseph Paul-Boncourt (legal professional, deputy) or Justin God de Artement (former Minister of Labour). State Undersecretary of Army Well being).
From then till the Thirties, the Muller affair turned into a reference for organizations that defended the disabled at paintings and contributed to the stimulation of fascinated about the safety of staff, earlier than the start of the welfare state.
At the Muller Affair, pamphlet of the Common Confederation of United Exertions (CGTU), January 1923. MSH of Dijon/Universite Bourgogne Europe Muller/Mangione: traumatic symmetries
Between a century and the Atlantic Ocean, with out prejudice to the decision within the trial of Luigi Mangione, nowadays many not unusual issues appear to glue the Mueller affair and the Mangione affair. Essentially the most putting of those not unusual denominators is the adolescence of the accused, each of their twenties. Additionally, their profiles get away the standard media tales, with a tender employee crippled by way of paintings, at the one hand, and a tender guy from a excellent circle of relatives and excellent schooling, at the different. The issues encountered also are shut. The primary used to be a sufferer, after an amputation, of an early incapacity pension award by way of his insurer (inexpensive than protecting the price of restoration), whilst the second one, affected by spondylolisthesis, used to be a sufferer or witness (the investigation will decide) of American personal medical insurance practices, after again surgical procedure.
With out a militant background or legal data, those two younger males, extraordinary and uneventful, one sprung into motion and the opposite suspected of doing so once they noticed their fates unraveling. Their written calls for are virtually an identical: “Honestly, these parasites deserved it” for Luigi Mangione and “I’m going to kill my boss, too bad for him. He wanted it, he deserved it” for Marcel Miller.
Luigi Mangione (R), accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, throughout a listening to in Long island Felony Courtroom on December 18, 2025, in New York. Louise C. Ribeiro-Pool/AFP
It’s no doubt for these kind of causes that those two circumstances had such an have an effect on. Even though data in 1922 used to be now not as globalized as it’s nowadays, the Miller affair nonetheless made the entrance web page of the Ecu version of the Chicago Tribune and used to be coated by way of a number of dozen articles within the Anglo-Saxon and global press.
The load of public opinion
A somewhat uncommon phenomenon for legal circumstances, in each circumstances we practice a public opinion that has a tendency to know their movements and to forgive their culprit, and even for sure fringes in the USA, to strengthen and justify revenge. This leniency is defined by way of a type of empathy, the id of civil society with their “cause”.
In 1922, in France, it used to be the warfare invalids who raised the general public consciousness of the incapacity factor, since with greater than one million invalids, each and every Frenchman had no less than one invalid or warfare invalid in his circle of relatives/family members circle and knew what hardships he may undergo (relief in rank, unemployment, and so forth.). In the USA, hundreds of thousands of American citizens have skilled issues of, and even denial of, clinical protection from their personal insurer, with once in a while dramatic penalties; to not point out the fee and deductibles they pay to take pleasure in medical insurance.
For Marcel Muller as for Luigi Mangione, the involvement of personal corporations within the box of well being is the supply in their motion. And whether it is reprehensible, their gesture illustrates the scenarios of bodily and ethical struggling brought about by way of the abuse of business actors. Marcel Müller used to be thus the sufferer of a lawsuit aimed toward decreasing his repayment. This sort of follow, which remains to be not unusual in the USA and is summed up within the “three D’s” (“Delay, Deny, Defend”, which means “Deny, Deny and then Defend”), is precisely what Luigi Mangione despises.
The one distinction between the 2 circumstances derives from their symbolic significance, as a result of, if the trial made him a symbol, Marcel Müller’s gesture used to be first of all a non-public revenge, as mentioned in his letter of call for. Luigi Mangione, for his section, turns out to have a political measurement, denouncing the liberal American well being care device and personal insurance coverage corporations, as evidenced by way of his writings written a couple of months earlier than the crime. In consequence, he used to be charged nowadays with an “act of political violence” by way of the government. His upcoming trial would possibly shed slightly extra gentle on his deeper motives.
Morgan Poggioli is the writer of the guide The Mueller Affair. Politicizing Damaged Our bodies, Editions de l’Atelier, Paris, April 2026.
