(Melun) Comedian Pierre Palmade, fallen figure of French showbiz, was sentenced Wednesday to prison for a serious road accident caused in 2023 after consuming cocaine and synthetic drugs.
Posted at 11:38 a.m.
Updated at 3:03 p.m.
Alexandre MARCHAND and Maryam EL HAMOUCHI
Agence France-Presse
In this drama which triggered a media storm of rare intensity in France, the prosecution had requested five years in prison, two of which were closed.
“One cannot be too lenient when […] driving under the influence of drugs caused a tragedy,” said prosecutor Marie-Denise Pichonnier, whose requisitions were followed by the criminal court of Melun, near Paris.
At the hearing, with a livid face, Pierre Palmade asked “forgiveness from the depths of (his) being” to the injured, a father of Turkish origin, his 6-year-old son and his pregnant sister-in-law who had lost her baby after the shock.
In a state of legal recidivism due to a conviction in 2019 for use of narcotics, the 56-year-old artist was tried for aggravated involuntary injuries and faced up to fourteen years of imprisonment and 200,000 euros ($295,000) ‘fine.
“I am really overwhelmed, tested to see them in real life,” he said, speaking publicly for the first time.
“I understand their anger. A crazy drug addict crashed into them, it’s almost inexcusable,” said the artist, confronted in the morning with the story of the broken lives of the victims of the car opposite.
In a hoarse voice, the man of theater and television, who had his hour of glory in the years 1990-2000, returned to the circumstances which led to this dramatic collision. He had become so caught up in drugs that he could no longer work.
For three days, Pierre Palmade had been partying continuously without sleeping between Paris and his country house in Cély-en-Bière, alternating between injections of 3-MMC (a synthetic drug), taking cocaine and playing games of ” chemsex” with “sex friends”.
“Like zombies”
“We are really like zombies, vegetables, naked, bloody,” he described to the judges.
On Friday evening, as night fell, he got into the car with two companions to buy dinner at the local supermarket before his drug dealer arrived.
Dozed off by 3-MMC, he snorts several lines of cocaine before getting behind the wheel to “wake up” again.
“I see all three of us leaving the house euphoric and then it’s dark, I open my eyes and I’m (at the) Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital,” said Pierre Palmade, who said he had never no memory of the accident.
According to the investigating judge, in the straight line of a small road, the Peugeot 3008 driven by the comedian suddenly swerved and hit a car arriving opposite on the other lane.
Through the cascade of revelations about the lifestyle and addictions of this drifting artist, the general public discovered the dark side of a popular comedian, although a little out of fashion, who had been performing for 30 in his fight against his existential terrors.
The artist is on trial for involuntary injuries, aggravated by taking drugs, but not for involuntary homicide.
“This choice of the investigating magistrate is, in my opinion, highly contested and questionable, it must therefore be discussed,” declared the lawyer for the three victims of the accident, Mr.e Mourad Battikh, at the start of the hearing.
Following the accident, the baby was urgently extracted by cesarean section from his mother’s womb at six months of pregnancy, but declared dead after 32 minutes of resuscitation, without having given any sign of extra-uterine life.
However, according to consistent case law from the Court of Cassation, the highest court of the judicial order in France, a child who is not born alive does not exist as a legal person.
“In this case, everyone agrees to challenge absurd case law,” argued Mr.e I beat you.
