Almost a year after the death of Serge Garaud in Galan, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, following a road accident, a judicial investigation should soon be opened due to the scandal of defective airbags on certain Citroën vehicles.
On November 18, 2023, like every Saturday lunchtime, Serge Garaud went to his parents, Louisette and Éloi, in Galan, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, to have lunch with them. At around 2 p.m., not seeing their son arrive, the couple, worried, decided to go the opposite way. “I had a feeling, a bad feeling,” Louisette said.
A few minutes later, the lives of the couple aged 79 and 84 were sadly turned upside down when a person on the side of the road signaled them to stop, using large gestures. In the ditch, Serge’s car, a Citroën C3, damaged. On board, their son, lifeless and injured. Serge Garaud died at the age of 51, apparently following an accident with another vehicle which fled.
While the first elements suggest that the injury could be linked to the seat belt, the Takata airbag scandal splashes the investigation. As a reminder, the Japanese giant went bankrupt and is behind the recall of millions of vehicles manufactured between 2009 and 2019 and equipped with these defective protection systems. Serge’s C3 had one of these airbags.
Soon the opening of a judicial investigation
The investigation then takes on another dimension. “After the Antilles and Reunion, where fatal accidents have been recorded, linked to this equipment on the same car models, there is reason to question…”, declared Christophe Lèguevaques, the family’s lawyer Garaud, last June. Citroën has also recalled 600,000 vehicles since mid-May.
Today, after several months of investigation, a judicial investigation should soon be opened, as indicated by Bérengère Prud’homme, prosecutor of Hautes-Pyrénées: “The investigation made it possible to gather a certain number of testimonies and technical elements, and we are on the verge of opening a judicial investigation given the complexity of the chain of potential responsibilities.”
Although the procedure must still last for years, according to Maître Lèguevaques, the opening of this judicial information will allow lawyers to have access to the file and, perhaps, the families of the victims to have answers.
