Who was the Frenchman who died during a live stream?

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Warning: This article contains graphic details.

Drap, France -- For some people close to him, Raphael Graven was living “his best life” in the years before he died during a live-streamed event on Monday, watched by thousands.

But others, who met Graven -- better known by his “Jean Pormanove” pseudonym -- before his online fame, said he was “too nice” and allowed himself to be manipulated.

Graven died during a live stream that had gone on for 10 days, with online viewers describing scenes of extreme violence against him, including beatings, chokeholds, sleep deprivation, insults and humiliating comments.

One person who knew Graven during the 2000s described him as friendly, “not very bright,” and easily influenced.

“He was gullible. You could make him believe that a tree was blue,” said Nicolas Frerot, who made Graven’s acquaintance while they were both in the army.

Graven, then in his early 20s, was “very thin,” “physically fragile” and couldn’t do push-ups or march in formation, he said.

“He wasn’t good enough, he had to leave,” Frerot told AFP by telephone.

After the army, Graven worked at a slaughterhouse, but got sacked “because of questions of hygiene,” Frerot said.

Graven’s death, announced online by his mother, sparked a host of messages on his former unit’s Facebook page.

There he was described as “a friendly chap,” “big-hearted” and “a very pleasant and simple person.”

Graven first won an online following commentating video games, such as Fortnite and FIFA, with an angry and provocative tone that became his trademark.

He gained more online traction after meeting two southern French influencers, known as NarutoVie and Safine.

These are the “partners” with whom he appeared in videos in which he seemed to be mistreated in increasingly degrading circumstances.

His old friend Frerot urged him to “get away from these assholes,” but Graven responded that he should not worry. “Everything is going well,” he said.

Graven had indeed been living “his best life” after moving to the southern French coast, said a source close to NarutoVie, who asked not to be identified.

“We went to restaurants with him, we went out on boats and to the beach,” the source told AFP.

But what about the violence and humiliations visible in the live streams?

“That was just theatre, to get a buzz,” said a young person in the neighbourhood. “Nobody would have ever hurt him.”

When Graven himself was questioned by police in January in a previous investigation involving the same group that was suspected of “violence against vulnerable people,” he denied being the victim of any violence.

As part of that probe, NarutoVie and Safine were briefly detained for questioning.

In his last video, streamed on the Australian Kick platform, Graven could be seen lying motionless under a sheet while another man threw a plastic bottle at him.

The prosecutor of Nice, Damien Martinelli, said Wednesday that evidence seized and interviews had not yielded any firm leads as to the cause of Graven’s death.

Police are hoping an autopsy scheduled for Thursday will shed more light.

AFP