A car hit a mother, her partner and her 12-year-old daughter at a farmers’ roadblock this Tuesday, January 23. The accident, which cost the lives of the farmer and her daughter and seriously injured her partner, is favored.
A drama took place on the sidelines of the mobilization of farmers, angry against the increase in taxes and the accumulation of standards this Tuesday, January 23. A mother and her daughter lost their lives after a serious accident that occurred in Pamiers, in Ariège, at a farmers’ dam.
• Three people hit by a car
The accident occurred at 5:45 a.m. on the N20 in Ariège (Occitanie) near the RD 119 bridge in Pamiers, the prefecture said. Or at one of the blocking points held by the farmers. A vehicle took “national road 20, despite the system put in place to prohibit access”, specifies a press release from the public prosecutor released at the end of the morning.
The vehicle, which was traveling on the double track, collided “in the middle of the night, and with no public lighting nearby, a wall of straw bales, erected all the way up to the bridge” and “covered with a large black tarpaulin “.
Behind this straw wall, “protesters were eating” under a barn, including a farmer, her husband, and her 12-year-old daughter, whom the vehicle hit. He finished his race “against the trailer of a tractor”.
“Visually, there is no doubt, the person knew that they were going on a prohibited route,” declared the prefect of Ariège, Simon Bertoux, during a press conference. He recalled that the “dam was secure” and that “everything had been put in place in a professional manner to close access to the two-lane road”.
• Two dead and one seriously injured
The mother, aged around 30, died on the spot as a result of her injuries. She was a Limousin cow breeder and seed corn producer in the village of Saint-Felix-de-Tournegat, a few kilometers from Pamiers.
His 12-year-old daughter, seriously injured in the accident, was airlifted to the Toulouse hospital center. “She died as a result of her injuries shortly after 7 p.m.,” regretted the Foix prosecutor’s office in a press release at 9:45 p.m.
The same prosecutor’s office had first announced her death at the end of the morning, before correcting it by specifying that she was still “in critical condition”. The prosecution told AFP that it had communicated the death based on “erroneous information”.
The “seriously injured” husband was taken to hospital and placed in intensive care. According to the latest information this mid-afternoon, his life is no longer in danger. He has bruises and an injury to his pelvis.
On site, 35 firefighters, 13 police officers and 20 gendarmes were mobilized and a psychological support unit was set up.
The blockage on the N20 has been lifted and the farmers of Ariège “will see what follow-up they give” to the mobilization “out of respect for the family”.
The Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau expressed on a tragedy for all of us.”
The latter planned to go to Ariège during the day, BFMTV learned from those around him.
• The occupants of the vehicle arrested
On board the car involved in the accident, coming from Toulouse and heading towards Andorra, were three people: the 44-year-old driver, his wife and one of their friends as passengers.
They were arrested a few minutes after the accident fatal and placed in police custody, we learned from the Foix public prosecutor’s office. They will be “heard very quickly”.
The driver is unknown to the police and his alcohol and drug tests are negative.
These three people are of Armenian nationality, the prefect of Ariège Simon Bertoux told the press. And were targeted by an OQTF according to information from Le Parisien confirmed by BFMTV.
They had submitted an asylum application in 2022 which was refused. Despite their multiple appeals, they were rejected again in 2023 and were served with an OQTF. These people were not known for disturbing public order and had no criminal records, a source close to the investigation told BFMTV.
• The preferred accident track, an open investigation
The first elements of the investigation indicate that the accident track is favored. The mother, her husband and their daughter would not have been intentionally hit by the car.
“In view of the very first elements of the investigation, which has barely begun, the facts in question do not appear to be of an intentional nature,” asserts the prosecutor.
A judicial investigation, entrusted to the Pamiers police station, was opened blatantly on charges of aggravated manslaughter and aggravated injury.
Charges aggravated by “the breach of an obligation of caution or safety”, i.e. having driven on a road to which access was prohibited, reports a judicial source.