State of shock for angry farmers. This morning, around 5:45 a.m., one of their colleagues, who worked in Ariège, and who was present at the RN20 dam, in Pamiers, near the RD119 bridge, was killed in dramatic circumstances. 20 minutes takes stock of this tragedy while the prosecutor of Foix and the prefect of Ariège have just spoken
What happened this Tuesday morning in Pamiers?
A farmer was killed, her husband and her teenage daughter were seriously injured, after being knocked down at dawn on Tuesday at a farmers’ roadblock in Pamiers, Ariège. In a press release, the Ariège prefecture reported a “dead person” and “two seriously injured” in “a serious traffic accident” which occurred at 5:45 a.m. in Pamiers “on the scene of the agricultural demonstration” . The prefecture then confirmed the comments of the president of the FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau, guest of the RMC morning show.
“I have just learned that a road accident happened in Ariège at Pamiers and that three of our members suffered a serious accident” near a blockage point, declared Arnaud Rousseau. “A woman has died, her husband and her daughter are in a visibly complicated state and are quickly taken care of by all the Samu services,” he added, specifying that he had no further details on the circumstances. drama.
The deceased farmer, aged around thirty, was a breeder of Limousin cows and a producer of seed corn in the village of Saint-Felix-de-Tournegat, a few kilometers from Pamiers. Her husband and teenage daughter are in a very serious condition, “with a serious prognosis”, according to Jérôme Bayle, a figure in the farmers’ mobilization and friend of the victim. The father, aged around forty, was evacuated to the Intercommunal Hospital Center of the Ariège Valleys (Chiva), located near Foix, according to information from the prosecution.
At one time announced “died as a result of her injuries” at around 12:30 p.m., the 14-year-old teenager was finally seriously injured. The prosecution assured that it had communicated his death on the basis of “erroneous information”.
Where is the investigation?
The judicial investigation, entrusted to the Pamiers police station, was opened blatantly on charges of “aggravated manslaughter and aggravated injury”. While rumors circulated about a deliberate action by the driver, the Foix public prosecutor’s office as well as the Ariège prefecture immediately alerted the population to the circulation of false information concerning the tragedy and called for the greatest caution.
According to the first elements of the investigation communicated by the prosecutor, the vehicle traveling in the Toulouse-Andorra direction, “with on board a couple and one of their friends, all three of foreign nationality, took national road 20 , despite the system put in place to prohibit access. During a press conference, the prefect of Ariège, Simon Bertoux, indicated that these three people were of Armenian nationality.
“While traveling on the dual carriageway, their vehicle collided, in the middle of the night, with no public lighting nearby, into a wall of straw bales […] The vehicle then hit three people, before ending its course against the trailer of a tractor,” the prosecutor further explained. A Foix public prosecutor’s office which specified that “in view of the very first elements of the investigation, which has barely begun, the facts in question do not appear to be of an intentional nature”. As for the alcohol and drug tests carried out on the driver, aged 44 and unknown to the justice services, they were negative. The three occupants of the car were taken into custody and will be questioned very quickly.
What are the reactions?
The roadblock had been set up the day before by farmers from Ariège, as part of the national protest movement. The Young Farmers’ Union (JA) and the Departmental Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FDSEA) quickly announced the lifting of this blockade on the RN20, where the accident occurred. The farmers of the department, for their part, wanted to express “their support for the relatives and families of the victims” in a press release.
The Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, expressed his “sorrow” on X (formerly Twitter) and sent “his full support to the family and loved ones of the victims”. He added: the “nation is upset and united”, before specifying that the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau was going to go there. A medical-psychological emergency unit has also been set up for the benefit of the victims’ families on the initiative of the Foix public prosecutor’s office, which intervenes to ensure the care of the relatives of a person who died violently.