Eight years after Puisseguin, one of the most terrible road accidents to occur in France, the first indictments were announced. Four indictments were issued in November during the investigation into this dramatic accident which cost the lives of 43 people in 2015. The case was reopened in March.
“We need to move faster”
Two legal entities are involved: the transport company which chartered the truck involved in the accident with the coach; and the company behind the modification of the heavy goods vehicle with the installation of an additional fuel tank. Two individuals, representatives of these two companies, are also targeted in this investigation for involuntary manslaughter “by failure to comply with an obligation of prudence or safety”.
These four indictments pronounced on November 9 and 10 come during the reopening of the investigation into this road accident, the deadliest in France since that of Beaune in 1982 (53 deaths), after the court of The appeal overturned in March a dismissal rendered in 2021.
“Our perseverance means that we have these four indictments but the results (of the investigation) are a little meager after eight years,” reacted Me Marie Mescam, one of the lawyers of the Puisseguin victims’ collective. , expressing their “impatience”: “We need to go faster. »
The drama began on the morning of October 23, 2015 when a semi-trailer veered to the left leaving the village of Puisseguin, east of Bordeaux, before hitting a bus of retirees on an excursion coming in the direction reverse.
Trapped in the flames and toxic fumes, 41 people on board burned to death or asphyxiated. Eight had survived. The truck driver and his three-year-old son died in the accident.
“The positive side is that the investigation is relaunched”
In his dismissal order, a Libourne investigating judge estimated in 2021 that if faults had been committed, they did not have a direct causal link with the accident, the origin of which was according to him the speeding of the truck driver. No indictment took place during the procedure. But the investigating chamber, on March 2, ordered additional information.
A letter of request was notably issued in Germany for new investigations into the design of the coach by the manufacturer Mercedes and its subsidiary EvoBus. “The positive side is that the investigation has been relaunched,” noted Danièle Gauvin, president of the victims’ collective after a meeting with the lawyers of the civil parties on Tuesday evening.
She nevertheless deplored the long delays in the investigation, citing victims who were “exasperated” for these delays: “We were told at the start that (this additional information) was likely to take two years. Over the two years, we have already eaten a third” since March, she lamented.