A deadly road accident involving a very popular French humorist, Pierre Palmade, under the influence of cocaine, brought to the fore the tragedies caused by the use of narcotics while driving.
The car of the 54-year-old actor and director hit a vehicle arriving in the opposite direction on Friday evening about fifty kilometers south of Paris. Tests revealed that he was positive for cocaine at the time of the collision. “He wakes up little by little and realizes the horror […] of what he caused, ”said his sister Hélène Palmade on Tuesday, who was able to see him in the hospital.
In addition to Pierre Palmade, now out of danger, three people were seriously injured, including a 6-year-old child and a 27-year-old woman six and a half months pregnant who lost her baby in the accident. Their vital prognosis remained engaged on Monday evening. The child’s father was also seriously injured, but his life is no longer in danger.
An investigation was opened “for homicide and involuntary injuries” by “driver under the influence of narcotics”. Mr. Palmade must be heard by the investigators as soon as his state of health permits.
“He is devastated, he is ashamed,” his sister also said in a statement to AFP. “He will assume all the consequences of his actions with the terrible awareness that he will never be able to repair the harm he has done”.
Shortly after, the victims and their relatives replied that they were “insensitive to the apologies presented”, through the voice of their lawyer Mourad Battikh, during a press conference in Paris. They hope that the “notoriety” of the comedian will not influence the investigation.
The lawyer said two of the victims, the 38-year-old man and his 6-year-old son, were still in intensive care on Tuesday. The boy has a “fractured jaw” and the father has undergone several operations.
The woman who lost her baby is “collapsed”, added her lawyer, assuring that “an emergency cesarean section” had been performed: “the child would have been born alive, but this remains to be confirmed by the experts”.
One in five deaths
According to witnesses, two men in their twenties who were passengers in Mr. Palmade’s car fled after the accident, prompting the Interior Ministry to issue an appeal for them to surrender in order to ‘explain the facts’.
This accident has brought to light the danger posed by the use of narcotics while driving, implicated in 20% of road deaths, and their consumption by celebrities.
Government spokesman Olivier Véran, questioned on the subject on Tuesday, considered that there was no “social, societal and even less political tolerance vis-à-vis this or that drug on the pretext that this or that such public consumes it more favourably”.
Mr. Véran reiterated the objective of doubling anti-narcotics controls on the roads.
“These are goals that are not new. We are increasing the number of controls, because nearly one in five deaths linked to a road accident is linked to the taking of narcotics. It’s 700 deaths a year, two a day, “he lamented on the France 2 television channel.
Mentor to a whole generation of French comedians, Pierre Palmade has established himself as a figure in the one man show and private theatre. He is a familiar face on the small screen in France and has appeared in a dozen films, but has also become known for his excesses.
He was convicted in 1995 of cocaine use. In 2019, he was taken into custody for “use and acquisition of narcotics” after being falsely accused of rape.
Coming out of the first confinement, he returned to the stage to play a piece entitled “Assume, brothel! echoing his own life and his long journey to accepting his homosexuality.