The Minister of the Interior wants to reclassify fatal road accidents which are due to narcotics or alcohol, such as the one involving comedian Pierre Palmade.
“We need to be tougher on offenders.” Gérald Darmanin pleads for more firmness towards people driving under the influence of narcotics, in an interview with Sunday newspaper (JDD) put online on Saturday February 18. After Pierre Palmade’s accident, the Minister of the Interior wants, among other things, the automatic withdrawal of 12 points from their driving license for drivers who have used drugs. He also wants fatal accidents due to drugs or alcohol to be reclassified as “road homicide”. Franceinfo takes stock of this offense which could emerge in the coming months.
1 What does Gérald Darmanin’s proposal consist of?
The Minister of the Interior explains in the JDD be “in close collaboration with Eric Dupond-Moretti [le garde des Sceaux] to rename fatal accidents caused by drugs and alcohol as ‘road homicide'”. Gérald Darmanin specifies that they were working on it “since last December, on the proposal of the associations”. However, he did not specify the outlines of this measure or the sanctions that would apply in the event of “road homicide”.
This type of offense is currently qualified as manslaughter, aggravated by the consumption of alcohol or drugs. Penalties under the Penal Code range from seven years’ imprisonment (if there is one aggravating circumstance) to ten years (if two or more aggravating circumstances).
2 Why use the term “road homicide” rather than “manslaughter”?
According to Dominique Courtois, president of the National Federation of Road Victims (FNVR), “for the victims, the term ‘involuntary’ is inaudible. When you consume narcotics and drive your car knowingly, it is considered a deliberate act”.
Questioned by franceinfo, the lawyer specializing in road law Antoine Régley explains: “We have this legal difficulty which says that we did not want to kill, so we cannot qualify it as voluntary homicide, but we have adopted such a risky behavior that we cannot say that it is not is not our fault”.
3 Has this measure already been proposed?
The term “road homicide” appears in a bill aimed at preventing and punishing road crime and improving support for road victims and their families, tabled in the National Assembly at the end of November 2022. It is carried by eight deputies from different groups (five from the Freedoms, Independents, Overseas and Territories group – Liot –, two from the LR group and one from the Renaissance group).
Concretely, the deputies ask to requalify the term of manslaughter committed by the driver of a vehicle in “road homicide”. The idea is “to make this qualification independent of the general case of manslaughter”it is specified in the text. MEPs argue that the creation of “road homicide” would allow victims and families “not to hear the word ‘involuntary’ repeated over and over again throughout the trial hearing”. However, the text does not provide for modifying the penalties applicable to this offence.
This bill has not yet been studied in Parliament and Gérald Darmanin did not specify whether the government was going to use it or present a bill on “road homicide” itself.
4 Is this enough for road accident associations?
The reclassification of the offense as “road homicide” is requested by several associations. But according to Dominique Courtois, if Gérald Darmanin’s statement “opens the way to more firmness towards traffic crime, we must go much further”. The president of the FNVR suggests that“there should almost be specific sanctions inscribed in the Penal Code which relate to the road, and that they be heavier.”
“Perhaps drivers under the influence of narcotics would think twice before getting behind the wheel.”
Dominique Courtois, President of the National Federation of Road Victimsat franceinfo
For his part, Vincent Julé-Parade, lawyer at the Paris Bar and specialized in the defense of road victims, welcomes this desire for requalification but still sees a limit in this term: “This sanction would only apply in the event of a fatal accident and therefore not when people are seriously injured, with lives sometimes shattered.”