Twenty-one months after the crash, the trial of French comedian Pierre Palmade opened Wednesday in Melun, in the Paris region, for the serious road accident he caused while under the influence of drugs, leading to the highly publicized fall of this popular figure mired in his drug addiction.
In a state of legal recidivism due to a conviction in 2019 for drug use, he faces a sentence of fourteen years’ imprisonment and a fine of 200,000 euros. At the end of the day on February 10, 2023, this man of theater and television took the wheel to go shopping, after several days of partying and unbridled drug consumption. On a road in the south of the Seine-et-Marne department, his car collided with a vehicle coming in front. In addition to the actor, then aged 54, the accident left three seriously injured from the same family: a 38-year-old man, his six-year-old son and his 27-year-old sister-in-law, who lost the baby she was expecting. .
Throughout the cascade of revelations about the lifestyle and addictions of this drifting artist, the general public discovers with astonishment the dark side of a popular comedian, although a little out of fashion, who has been staging since 30 years of his struggle against his existential terrors. After a long year of judicial investigation, the investigating judge sent Pierre Palmade back to the Melun criminal court at the end of May for involuntary injuries, aggravated by taking drugs. She did not retain the qualification of involuntary homicide, which the prosecution had requested for the loss of the fetus, considering that this thorny question at the confluence of bioethics and law deserved a “debate before the trial court“.
Belgium
