Accused by unions and deputies of France Insoumise (LFI) of not having had a word of support for the TGV driver who committed suicide this Tuesday, December 24 and his family, Philippe Tabarot responds.
Barely named and already the subject of criticism for his reaction after the suicide of a TGV driver this Tuesday, December 24, Philippe Tabarot, the new Minister of Transport, is defending himself. Pointed out by the SUD-Rail union and rebellious elected officials, who accuse him of not having had a word for the victim and her family, he declared this Thursday, December 26 on RTL:
“I was the first to say that it was above all a human tragedy, where a certain number of your colleagues questioned me about the situation of the 10,000 users who were left stranded that evening and who did not were not able to spend the holidays with family.”
“Empathy”
“Some react with comments that are not fair in relation to the empathy that we were able to have with the management of the SNCF and a certain number of unions with which I was able to exchange,” he adds.
Bruno, 52, committed suicide by jumping from his moving train near the town of Moisenay, in the south of Seine-et-Marne this Tuesday, December 24. A member of the SNCF since 1997, he was also part of the CGT-Cheminot and had recently fought pension reform, as we can read in articles in Le Parisien and Le Progrès. This tragic event caused significant disruptions on the South-East high-speed line and affected thousands of users.
Philippe Tabarot was criticized after an interview with CNews this Tuesday, where he said in particular that this affair “could have been more serious if (the driver) had wanted to derail his train”. He thus underlines that the TGV was then able to “run for a few hundred meters” thanks to an “automatic standby with control of support maintenance” which makes it possible to “stop the train”, without “putting users in difficulty”.
“Shame on this Minister of Transport who does not have a word of support for the driver's family and colleagues. No condolences…. his only concern is the delay on this very 'important' day of New Year's Eve … Hello Philippe Tabarot a human!?! A human, not a machine”, reacted LFI MP Karen Erodi on X.
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