a lawsuit required against Paris City Hall for homicide and involuntary injuries

A trial for homicide and involuntary injuries was requested against the Paris City Hall and the trustee of the co-ownership for the explosion on rue de Trévise (9^e district) which left four dead and more than two hundred injured in January 2019, the prosecutor announced Thursday, October 14.

In its indictment signed on Monday, the public prosecutor requests that the City of Paris and the trustee also be tried before the criminal court “for involuntary destruction by the effect of an explosion or fire”specifies Laure Beccuau in a press release. It is now up to the investigating judges to decide whether or not to hold a criminal trial.

“The City of Paris is accused of having committed errors of imprudence and negligence, by not carrying out the necessary investigations to determine the cause of the subsidence of the sidewalk in front of the porch of n°6 rue de Trévise, and by not carrying out the work necessary to remedy it”details M^me Became

“Security obligation”

“He is also accused of breaching an obligation of safety or prudence imposed by law or regulation, for not having carried out monitoring checks on the repairs to the sidewalk in front of the porch in accordance with the road regulations of the City of Paris of 2015 »adds the prosecutor.

The trustee is suspected of having committed “a reckless or negligent act consisting of delaying the repair of the building’s wastewater collector” although he had been informed “from November 25, 2015 of a wastewater leak”she continues. “These failings contributed” at the occurrence of the explosion, concludes M^me Became

A judicial investigation was opened at the end of January 2019. The Paris City Hall and the building’s co-ownership trustee were indicted during the procedure for “homicides and involuntary injuries” and “destruction, degradation or deterioration by the effect of an explosion or fire.

In March 2022, when the investigation was almost closed, the City of Paris obtained on appeal that new experts analyze the causes of the deadly accident. According to these experts, the accident was primarily caused by a water leak. The wastewater collector located under 6, rue de Trévise leaked for two years, from 2015 to 2017, and the co-ownership was slow to react. In this version, the trustee of the co-ownership is implicated for having allowed the water leak to persist, and the City of Paris for having simply returned the sidewalk to horizontal without investigating the reasons for the subsidence or act accordingly.