At the end of six weeks of a heavy trialoften loaded with pain and emotion, the sixth chamber of the Marseille criminal court placed its judgment under advisement on Wednesday, December 18 7 July 2025, at 10 a.m..
If the delay is so long, it is because the magistrates will have to answer, in the meantime, numerous questions on the responsibility or not of one or the other protagonists and integrate the declarations of the 37 witnesses and experts successively cited to the bar.
The debates occupied 36 lawyers on the defense and civil party benches, as well as a fifty journalistsin the courtroom known as extraordinary trialscapable of accommodating more than 400 people simultaneously and located in the third arrondissement of the Marseille city.
Prosecutors Nicolas Bessone and Michel Sastre demanded on December 12, against the defendants, sentences of up to three years in prison.
Rue d’Aubagne: the defense pleaded for acquittal
The lawyers of the civil parties, including Me Brice Grazzini, Me Philippe Vouland and Me Pascal Luongo, castigated in their pleadings the successive negligence of the Marseille town hall and in particular those of their representatives, including Julien Ruas, the only politician dismissed by the two investigating judges and former deputy mayor in charge of prevention and management of urban risks.
The lawyers of the main defendants in the fatal collapses, including Me Christophe Bass and Me Jean Boudot, pleaded relaxpassing the buck or shifting the responsibilities onto those absent from the trial.
Sixteen defendants had been summoned to appear in court since November 7. The tragedy of the rue d’Aubagne had eight dead and many injuredall aged 30 to 58, at 9:07 a.m. on November 5, 2018.
