The train disaster in Brétigny-sur-Orge (Essonne) killed seven people and injured hundreds in 2013. This Wednesday, the Evry prosecutor’s office asked the court to condemn the SNCF to “the maximum sentence” for manslaughter and unintentional injuries.
On the other hand, he asked for the release of SNCF Réseau (formerly Réseau Ferré de France, track manager) and the former railway executive, Laurent Waton, who had carried out the last surveillance round before the tragedy, considering that the faults concerning them n were not characterized.
Throw “opprobrium and discredit” on the SNCF
For the SNCF, criminal heiress of the SNCF Infra in charge of the maintenance of the tracks at the time of the facts, the required penalty amounts to 450,000 euros in fine, because of the legal recidivism that the prosecutor Rodolphe Juy-Birmann asked the court to retain. The SNCF “created the context at the origin of the accident” by a “failure in the maintenance chain”, affirmed the prosecutor, before addressing the many victims or relatives of victims.
“A fine, whatever the amount, does not make sense to you: no sentence will bring anyone back to life”, admitted the prosecutor, who however hopes that such a sentence will bring them “two satisfactions” . First, “you have been heard and recognized in your status as a victim,” he says. And above all, “the condemnation will cast opprobrium and discredit” on the public company.
“Fault of disorganization”
During an indictment of nearly three hours, the prosecutor denounced an “original fault of disorganization”, from which resulted the ten faults held against the SNCF. “It is not a questioning of the railway workers”, he insists, but of “the slow deterioration of their working conditions which have been impacted by the profitability objectives imposed on them”.
Several “shortcomings” are listed by the prosecutor. First of all, a “defect of documentary traceability”: in Brétigny-sur-Orge, “the one who makes the observations” on the track apparatus “is not the one who signs, the one who takes the dimensions is not not the one who writes on the card…”, illustrates the prosecutor. This “lack of traceability did not make it possible to maintain a sufficient level of alert” on a device known, however, for its “recurring geometry defects”.
“Delay in maintenance”
This complex device, called double junction crossing, should have been changed in advance. Permanently reduced train speed. The prosecutor pointed to the usual “delay in maintenance”, with operations postponed. “We slip because other emergencies take precedence,” comments Rodolphe Juy-Birmann.
And this “obvious negligence” in the follow-up of a 10 mm crack detected in 2008 on a crossover core of the switch: this core “has never been examined”. Throughout the trial, the SNCF disputed the alleged faults, attributing the accident to an undetectable defect in the steel of the switch and not to maintenance defects. “A company in denial”, tackles the prosecutor.