“I was walking on the sidewalk in front of the building. After a loud crack, I turned my head and saw her collapse. It was a downward vertical movement, as if it was collapsing from within. » This November 5, 2018, shortly after 9 in the morning, a woman passing by rue d’Aubagne, in the heart of the Noailles neighborhood, in Marseille, to go to work is, according to procedure, the witness more direct of the collapse of two buildings. Before being drowned in a thick fog of dust…
The eight bodies of the occupants of number 65 rue d’Aubagne will be removed from the rubble over the days. The adjacent building, number 63, which collapsed at the same time, was unoccupied, bought in 2017 by the municipality with the intention of one day opening a micro-kindergarten there. Six years later, on Thursday, November 7, the trial for the Aubagne Street collapses opens before the criminal court that, for six weeks, will try sixteen defendants: twelve individuals and four companies. “An extraordinary case, of great factual and legal complexity”according to Olivier Leurent, president of the judicial court.
At the end of a six-year investigation, the judges of the collective accident center referred to court, for manslaughter and unintentional injuries, Julien Ruas, the deputy of Jean-Claude Gaudin, mayor (Les Républicains) of Marseille from 1995 to 2020 . prevention and risk management delegate since 2014; Richard Carta, the architect who carried out an appraisal of the building just nineteen days before its collapse; as well as two legal entities, the SARL Cabinet Liautard, administrator of the co-ownership of 65, rue d’Aubagne, and the mixed economy municipal company Marseille Habitat, owner of 63, rue d’Aubagne. Four professionals who “created or contributed to creating the situation (…), or have not taken measures to avoid the drama, according to the judges.
Chronicle of a predicted catastrophe
In spring, lawyers for the civil parties took the unusual initiative of summoning twelve other defendants directly to court, heard as witnesses by the investigating judges, but whom the latter had decided not to implicate: some of the ten apartment owners in which its tenants died, as well as the administrator of 65 on behalf of the receiver, and two directors of Marseille Habitat. These direct summonses to the court refer to the same crimes of homicide and involuntary injuries preserved by the investigating judges, but add those of “subjecting vulnerable people to undignified living conditions” and danger.
You have 66.98% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
