Well underway, the legislative process to create the qualification of “road homicide” in the Penal Code was stopped by the dissolution of the National Assembly.
But one of the rapporteurs of the bill announced this Thursday, October 31 that he had obtained the green light from the executive to put it back on the agenda quickly.
The driver responsible for the death of Antoine Alléno, son of chef Yannick Alléno, is on trial this Thursday, October 31, for “involuntary manslaughter”. The tragedy had relaunched the debate on the establishment of a new “road homicide offense” for drivers responsible for the death of a person on the road.
This is what the starred chef and numerous road victims' associations have been demanding since then, and they have won their case. Indeed, a bill creating the offense of road homicide was passed last year in Parliament. But the legislative journey of this text from the right was stopped by the dissolution of the National Assembly. Where is she today?
The text could be examined in December
The rapporteur of the text to the National Assembly Eric Pauget (Republican Right) ensures this Thursday, October 31 that he has obtained the green light from the Minister of Justice, Didier Migaud, and the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun- Pivet, to put the text back on the agenda, perhaps as early as December 2024.
The bill, passed in the National Assembly in January, was also adopted by the Senate in March. But the senators had largely reworked the deputies' text, and it therefore had to be discussed again at the Bourbon Palace on second reading. The parliamentary shuttle was stopped in June by the announcement of the dissolution of the National Assembly by Emmanuel Macron.
Demanded by victims' associations, this new name with high symbolic value had already been supported by the government after the dramatic accident caused by comedian Pierre Palmade on February 10, 2023, under the influence of drugs.
New aggravating circumstances
The aim of the text, which does not change the quantum of penalties, aims to no longer speak of involuntary homicide but of “road homicide”, when one or more aggravating circumstances exist. “This shows the deliberate nature of the driving and dangerous driving” and can have “an effect on the sentence” that the judge will pronounce, estimated at the time the Renaissance deputy Anne Brugnera, co-rapporteur of the text with Eric Pauget.
The deputies added failure to assist a person in danger, the use of headphones, a telephone in the hand or the deliberate consumption of psychoactive substances in an indirect or clearly excessive manner as aggravating circumstances. They wanted road homicide to be punishable by seven years of imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 euros when there is only one aggravating circumstance; and ten years of imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros when there are at least two aggravating circumstances.
The senatorial right, the main force in the hemicycle, had however largely reworked the text by integrating the name “road homicide” “all attacks on persons committed by a driver”including for example in cases of fatigue while driving. Without returning, however, to the differentiation of the penalties incurred.
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“I found it so difficult”: Yannick Alléno’s fight for the creation of an offense of road homicide
If the text returns to Parliament, deputies and senators will have to agree on a new text. So that road victims and their families can move forward without feelings of anger or injustice. “The day of the meeting with the investigating judge, they told me, listen, we are going to charge the person who killed your son with involuntary homicide. I found that so difficult to hear, so unfair in do”Yannick Alléno told TF1.
