A preliminary investigation was opened after a nurse said she was forced to leave her home, in a small village in Hérault, by her owner who feared being contaminated by the coronavirus, announced on Thursday the prosecutor's office of Montpellier .
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Forced to leave home
This preliminary investigation was opened Thursday "to establish if the conditions in which this person was forced to leave his home were likely to receive one or more criminal qualifications," said Montpellier prosecutor Fabrice Belargent in a statement. Tuesday, the gendarmes intervened to assist her Melina, nurse anesthetist of the University Hospital of Montpellier, forced to leave her home with her family, he said.
The caregiver, 37, lived on the ground floor of a house in the village of Montarnaud with her mother and husband, as well as her two children, 20 and 3 years old.
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Hot water cut off, car exhaust "facing the window"
In an interview with La Gazette de Montpellier, the nurse explained that her owners, who live upstairs, fear being contaminated by Covid-19. To force her to leave the accommodation, her owners cut off hot water, electricity and the TV antenna, made a lot of noise early in the morning, and "put the exhaust pipe of their car" in front of the window of the apartment, "so that all the smoke comes in," she says at the microphone of Europe 1. A behavior that Mélina considers "unacceptable and deplorable".
The mother has since been relocated to a studio in Montpellier during confinement. Her husband found refuge in her parents' house. Her mother had to return to the retirement home in which she was staying before confinement.
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"We were contacted by the public prosecutor's office to assess the vulnerability of this person and his entourage. A lawyer contacts him and we can offer psychological follow-up. This is a new and dramatic situation", explains Joséphine Cesbron, president of France victims 34.