Apparently he is there. This Wednesday, November 20, it is 7:50 a.m. when photographers begin to flash around a van with tinted windows registered 75 which is entering the rear of the Melun criminal court, in Seine-et-Marne. One of them says he saw the comedian’s face. Well, not seen. Guessed his head, rather. Well, not quite his head, either, just a tousled lock of hair…
Thus begins the trial of Pierre Palmade. More than a year and a half after the road accident which hit the headlines, the actor appears for involuntary injuries while under the influence of drugs. Already convicted in 2019 for drug consumption, he faced up to fourteen years of imprisonment and a fine of 200,000 euros. He will be sentenced to five years in prison, two of which will be closed.
As a preamble, the president calls the defendant to the stand. At 56 years old, here he is, dark brown hair, pale face, defeated. He reveals his identity, his first words in public since the start of the affair: “I am Pierre Palmade, I was born on March 23, 1968,” he only said, in a high, slightly hoarse voice, recognizable among all others.
The investigating judge did not accept the charge of manslaughter for the death of the six-month-old fetus carried by the passenger in the car violently hit by the comedian. Me Mourad Battikh, the lawyer for the victims’ family, denounces a decision “absurd» based on case law from the Court of Cassation from 2001, which does not recognize the legal existence of the unborn child.
“French law protects animals better than the unborn child, underlines the lawyer, who says he wants to change the status of the unborn child. The child was buried, a grave was erected and yet, in the eyes of the law, she is nothing.” During his various hearings, Palmade recognized his responsibility in the death of “baby” of the accident victim. “If these statements are sincere, considers the lawyer, he will accept voluntary appearance” pour «l’homicide» of the unborn child.
Too late, underlines Me Céline Lasek, Pierre Palmade’s lawyer: an order dismissing the case, we are not going to go back. “We cannot make legal exceptions.» Deduction of the president: Palmade therefore does not wish to appear voluntarily. “I ask you not to ask him the questionshe reframes. He agreed, I opposed it.” Let’s see that. “Mr. Palmade, approach the bar.” Does he agree to appear voluntarily? “Um…no.”
“My life before was like a dream”
This preamble established, the president returns to the details of the accident. The victims take the stand one after the other to describe the injuries, the after-effects and the trauma. The father seriously injured in the accident, Yuksel Yakut, 39, gets up, limps to the bar, using a crutch, face closed. “I was working, I had friends, I was making money, I was working with my team, I tried to enjoy with my family, to do activities, to play football with my children… But today, I can no longer do this kind of thing, he lists. My life before was like a dream.” His son, 6 years old at the time of the accident and whose life was in danger, repeated his class. For him too, life has changed: “He doesn’t have a problem when he walks, but it’s when he talks…”
His sister-in-law now takes the stand. Her voice breaks as she talks about the loss of her baby and the pregnancy that followed the accident – today, this child is two months old. “I couldn’t get attached to my child during pregnancy for fear of losing her.” She had wanted to start a family for a long time, but the accident almost called everything into question: “I no longer felt capable, I no longer believed in the future.”
A final victim now stands at the bar: Michel, 87, the driver of the Twingo who was driving behind the family hit by Pierre Palmade’s Peugeot 3008. In addition to the aftereffects, he has something to add: “The media harassment is incredible, because it’s Mr. Palmade. It would be Mr. Tartempion, we wouldn’t talk about it.»
During the break, the journalists do not dare leave the court, for fear of losing their place. In the lost steps room, they chain duplexes or compare their remaining battery percentage. While waiting for the resumption, three of them stand outside the courtroom and dip sashimi in wasabi. “Anyone want some egg rolls?” asks another. The coffee machine only takes change. When it resumes, photographers are allowed to enter to shoot Pierre Palmade, who looks stunned and haggard. Five minutes is a long time, under the crackle of the devices, waiting for it to stop. An old wolf from the local press scans the room. “The anomaly is us, he summarizes. That’s what’s weird.» Or it’s the Palmade effect.
At the beginning of the afternoon, the president resumed the thread of events which preceded the accident. He talks about the drugs, the escorts, the chemsex, the injections of 3M™, this synthetic drug, intravenously, the syringes bought at the local pharmacy, the traces of blood in the rooms, and cites the content of the hearings with emphasis. theatrical which sounds a little false. “Pierre Palmade, approach the bar”. Does he have something to say spontaneously? “Today, I’m just devastated to see the victims, it’s a moment that I was dreadinghe begins. I would like to turn around and ask them for forgiveness, but I think they don’t want to.” After asking permission, he turns around. “I would like to ask you for forgiveness from the depths of my being.” He has one hand on his stomach.
“Like zombies, naked, bloody”
Two years of everyone talking about him, now it’s his turn to talk. On February 8, he started using in Paris, then decided to continue elsewhere. “I’m tired of being at home. It’s dirty. There’s blood everywhere. Let’s go to my country house.” He interrupts his story: “Should I continue?» He continues.
In his second home in Cély-en-Bière, in Seine-et-Marne, they continue what today he no longer dares call a party. “It’s hell, we’re like zombies, we’re naked, bloody.» On February 10, 2023, around 6:30 p.m., after spending three days taking drugs, he took the car to go get some money and do some shopping. “3M™ tends to make you apathetic, he said. By taking three or four lines of cocaine, I tell myself that it will wake me up. Then he remembers leaving his house. “After, cis black, he said. I wake up at Kremlin-Bicêtre. I don’t remember anything, neither the accident nor the rescue. I don’t understand anything at all, it takes me two days to understand that it’s true. I understand that I am in hell.”
“Dependence, unfortunately, is not a choice”
The president struggles to understand: why did he get behind the wheel? “The urgency and the notion of prudence are completely erasedhe said. I’m the first to find this guy unconscious.” The Carrefour was not far away.
– I’m a careful person when driving because of my father’s death…
– Mr Palmade, the president cuts him off. Thirteen speeding violations in ten years.
The lawyer for the civil parties questions him about his nightclub outing on June 25, 2023, four months after the tragedy. “I understand that it is indecent, scandalous, it is the disease.” Which does not abolish his discernment, continues the lawyer. “No, it’s not a choice sir, addiction is not a choice, unfortunately, it’s not a choice.”
He discovered drugs in the late 1980s, when he was struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality. “I found that it was a medicine, before becoming a poison, which cured me of the discomfort of being homosexual.” What followed were decades of addiction, the failure of cures, the tipping point of the discovery of 3M™, chemsex… Until the evening of the accident. “I will always have this baby on my conscience.”
Called as a witness, his sister Hélène speaks of her desire to seek treatment. “He got his life back and I got my brother back, she said. I have a feeling he’s going to do the right thing.” Pierre Palmade’s lawyer, Me Céline Lasek, gives a sad assessment of the latest attempts: “Do you believe it this time?” His sister: “Of course I want to believe it. Before the accident, I imagined him organizing his funeral, drug addict in an armchair, ruined. Today, I imagine him transmitting.” Its sponsor, Narcotics Anonymous, is moving in the same direction. “For now, he is doing everything he can, he said. And I will be by his side as long as he wants.”
The prosecution requires five years in prison, two of which are closed. In her pleading, Céline Lasek returns to the media hype surrounding the affair. “I’m tired of hearing everywhere that he gets preferential treatmentshe said. Palmade, his whole life has been displayed, in its darkest, saddest parts, in all its faults…” For the first time, she received threats to her office. “He became the devil, a monster. It’s still not Fourniret.”
The judge asks the comedian if he would like to add anything. And in this trial which oscillates between two sadnesses – the pain of a family and the suffering of a drug addict – the last words go to Pierre Palmade: “If I have only one thought it is for the victims, I saw them in real life today, it shocked me. I wish them to rebuild their lives.” No doubt he wishes it to himself too.
It is 8:30 p.m. when the president asks Pierre Palmade one last time to take the stand. The court sentences him to five years in prison, three of which are suspended. Warrant of deferred committal: the comedian will soon be summoned by the public prosecutor to determine the date and the penitentiary establishment where he will serve his sentence. The lawyer for the victims’ family reacted at the end of the hearing: “The civil party does not have to be satisfied with a judgment, the civil party is satisfied with having been heard. There is no judgment commensurate with what they experienced.” And on the apologies presented by the fallen artist: “They are still shocked, they welcomed them modestly.» A young photographer starts running into the room of lost steps. “It’s coming out sideways!” The hunt continues…
Updated November 21 with additions
