France/Antoine Alléno Association and the City of Nice join forces and sign a partnership to combat road homicides
Faced with the dramatic increase in road homicides, Nice mayor Christian Estrosi has taken decisive action to curb the scourge. A partnership agreement with the Antoine Alléno Association, founded by chef Yannick Alléno after the death of his son Antoine, was signed on Friday September 13. The aim of the agreement is to promote road safety, support victims and implement concrete solutions across the region.
Antoine Alléno, Jérémie Boulon, Éric Comyn, Rachid Djeloul... All these names tell tragic stories of lives taken by irresponsible drivers, turning the road into a scene of violence and crime. These tragedies leave families devastated, as in the poignant testimony of Nicolas, brother of Jérémie Boulon, a Nice firefighter fatally mowed down on his scooter by a car that had run a red light last June:
" My brother was smashed by a car on the Promenade des Anglais. The body ended up 60 metres further on, the scooter at 80. Two and a half months after his death, no one from the justice system has spoken to us. We are alone in the face of pain and injustice.
The way these cases are handled, from a judicial point of view and taking the families into account, is worse than catastrophic. In my brother's case, the aggravating circumstances were multiplied, yet the culprit was released with derisory conditions. When you have to count 15 days and you can go on vacation, there are no constraints.
The Public Prosecutor's Office has not even appealed, even though it is supposed to represent us. In addition to the pain of loss and loss, there's a feeling of contempt for us. We have the impression that our victims are treated like crushed dogs, whereas there are human beings behind them.
So we're fighting two battles: the first is to ensure that families are taken into account in the process of dealing with these homicides, and the second is the sense of injustice. There's the unintentional accident, which unfortunately can happen, but with so many faults: running red lights, speeding at over 120km/h instead of 50, consumption of nitrous oxide, hit-and-run, what does it take to go to prison? "he says.
These testimonials, full of sadness and indignation, echo an alarming reality: every day, two young people under the age of 24 lose their lives on the roads in France. Last year, the toll was 718. Antoine Alléno's father expresses the pain of a loss he cannot forget:
" When a child goes, he leaves behind at least five people in indescribable pain. That's 3,500 people a year who suffer for life. When these young people leave, they sometimes have brothers and sisters, they start their love life. Nobody goes to see these kids' loved ones. Yet they suffer. There are a lot of school drop-outs, and the parents are absolutely miserable .
"We have taken perpetuity".
On Friday September 13, the association invited the families of the victims to take part in artist JR's collective work of art "ALIVE", a collage of 3,000 portraits on the Pont de l'Alma in Paris. This commemorative fresco, symbolizing the memory of the young people mowed down on the roads as well as the struggle of the co-victims, is a central project of the Association Antoine Alléno. It will give these families a chance to reflect, but also to denounce a society that all too often forgets the victims of these road tragedies.
Beyond the law, it's also a human battle that the victims' families are waging. Jennifer, widow of Jérémie Boulon, expresses the ongoing suffering of her loved ones: " This work will show that we are still here. We have taken perpetuity. It's a fight that will last a lifetime .
A national emergency
Yannick Alléno's testimony is particularly moving. He reminds us that beyond the bereavement, almost all families are confronted with unbearable "administrative violence":
" Just yesterday I met a family whose name was Antoine too, who left a month before mine, two years ago. Today, the family still hasn't seen the examining magistrate. I can also tell you about Margot's parents, who took three weeks to recover their child's body from the morgue. Like Antoine, she had been hit by a car on the Pont-Neuf on a Sunday evening. We have to respect the memory of the families and give ourselves the means to see this with a great deal of humanity ".
For the association's president, it's also crucial that automakers and start-ups get involved in the search for innovative solutions to reduce fatal accidents. At the upcoming VivaTech trade show, the Antoine Alléno Association hopes to see the emergence of new technologies enabling vehicles to be stopped remotely, a breakthrough that could save lives:
" I've already seen some great briefs with ideas that no one has thought of yet. The manufacturers are doing a remarkable job on on-board safety, but now it's time to look at safety around vehicles .
Nice, a pioneer in the fight against road homicides
Under the impetus of the Antoine Alléno Association and the City of Nice, an ambitious three-pronged plan has just been launched: improving road safety, strengthening support for victims and deploying new prevention tools across the region.
Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Nice, makes no secret of his exasperation at the inaction of the national authorities: " I've made seven requests to the Prefecture to install speed cameras since 2022, and there's been no response. It's gone on too long. So the City of Nice is going to install them itself. It will then be up to the Préfet des Alpes-Maritimes to connect them to the Ministry of the Interior's network.
I'm calling on the government to tackle this scourge head-on. We need to make it the major national cause for the end of the five-year term.
The mayor's objective is clear: to make Nice France's leading city in the fight against road violence. Yannick Alléno also supports a law on road homicide, hoping for rapid adoption by the National Assembly:
" We're hopeful that things will move forward, that the road homicide law will finally be adopted. Fortunately, the Prime Minister has reminded us that this is a subject that will quickly come up for vote in the National Assembly.
Imagine, refusal to yield was not an aggravating circumstance, even though there are 27,000 such cases a year in France. Every 20 minutes, someone refuses to submit to the authority of the State. There was a tragedy again last night, and it's really urgent ".
This partnership between the City of Nice and the Antoine Alléno Association is a further step towards raising national awareness. The challenge is to get all spheres of society involved, so that these tragedies cease to be mere facts of life. Yannick Alléno concludes the day with a message of hope, calling for widespread mobilization.
Source: www.monaco-tribune.com
