The Senate approved this Wednesday, March 27, the creation of a new classification of “road homicide” for traffic accidents, clearly expanding the scope of this crime at the initiative of the right, which also tried to reestablish minimum penalties, without success.
The text was intended to respond to a request from victims’ associations that no longer support the legal classification of “involuntary homicide” in the case of road deaths, replacing it with the essentially symbolic notion of “road homicide” when one or more occur. aggravating factors. There are circumstances such as speeding or drug use.
“It is our duty that our law does not aggravate the suffering of victims with its words,” said Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti.
The right reopens the debate on minimum sentences
However, the senatorial right, the main force in the chamber, has greatly modified the text by integrating into this new name “all attacks on people committed by a driver”, including, for example, cases of fatigue at the wheel. Without returning, however, to the differentiation of the sanctions imposed.
“We cannot say that there are first-class victims and second-class victims,” insisted rapporteur Francis Szpiner (LR).
This device voted by the Senate offended the Minister of Justice and the left. “All mourning is equal, but not all reprehensible acts are equal,” insisted socialist Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie.
Subsequently, the debate became heated over the delicate issue of minimum sentences. In fact, the right has proposed a minimum sentence of two years in prison for certain cases of “road homicide”, reintroducing a Sarkozy measure abandoned since 2014.
“When these people are morally murderers, I consider that changing the law without changing anything in the penalties is not enough,” defended Francis Szpiner. “We are in the process of converting a consensual text into an exceptional text,” said the minister. “I prefer efficiency to demagoguery,” he added.
This device, adopted last week in committee, was finally rejected in public session, disassociating the centrist group allied with LR from this “political marker that could endanger the parliamentary journey,” according to Senator Olivia Richard.
Source: BFM TV
