Seven-year-old girl knocked down by motorcyclist in Vallauris has died from her injuries

Kamilya, a seven-year-old girl who was knocked down on Thursday on a pedestrian crossing in Vallauris, in the Alpes-Maritimes, by a motorcyclist who was doing a wheelie, died on Sunday, September 1.

“There was a spontaneous gathering this evening in Vallauris during which the father announced the death”said Nabil Boudi, the lawyer for the bereaved family, to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

On the Facebook group “Mutual aid and solidarity in Vallauris/Golfe Juan” where hundreds of comments have been pouring in since Thursday, some to denounce the lack of security measures on the avenue where the accident occurred, others to support the family, dozens of Internet users shared their feelings on Sunday “infinite sadness”.

As early as Friday, the child’s father had announced on the same group that doctors had warned them that there was no “no more hope”.

On Saturday evening, the motorcyclist, who was not known to the police or the courts, and whose alcohol and drug tests were negative, was charged with “unintentional injuries resulting in total incapacity for work of more than three months due to a clearly deliberate breach of a specific safety or caution obligation by the driver of a motor vehicle”. For the family lawyer, the facts should be reclassified as “involuntary manslaughter”.

The motorcyclist was placed under judicial supervision by a judge of liberties and detention and must “report once every two weeks to the Antibes police station”do not go to Vallauris or ” get in touch “ with the victim’s family. He also had to hand over his driving license to the court registry and is prohibited from leaving the Alpes-Maritimes department.

Contested judicial review

The Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes) public prosecutor’s office, which wanted him to be placed in provisional detention while the investigation was ongoing, as did the investigating judge who charged him, appealed this decision. This appeal will be examined “as soon as possible” by the investigating chamber of the Aix-en-Provence court of appeal, the latter announced to AFP.

“The family is dismayed” that the driver was not placed in provisional detention, explained to AFP Me Nabil Boudi, who, for his part, did not “cannot comment on a court decision”.

The little girl, who was crossing a pedestrian crossing with her 11-year-old brother, was hit around 7 p.m. by the motorcyclist who was riding up a line of cars on the back wheel, according to a police source.

According to Kevin Luciano, the right-wing mayor of this town of 30,000 inhabitants, the departmental road on which the accident occurred is not “not particularly accident-prone but is extremely busy with 3,000 vehicles per day”.

A petition demanding “security measures” on this avenue had been signed by nearly 2,800 people on Sunday evening. For the mayor, it is very complicated, if not impossible, to install speed bumps of the “speed bump” type because of a steep slope.

For its part, the Departmental Council assured on Friday that it would be holding “ready to advise and work closely with the municipality to improve the safety of local residents”, while emphasizing that“No adjustment can resolve the irresponsible individual behavior that leads to this kind of tragedy.”.

In 2023, 49 minors aged 0 to 13 were killed on the roads in metropolitan France, according to the National Interministerial Road Safety Observatory.