Dismissal in the case of the fatal floods of Lamalou-les-Bains

• On September 17 and 18, 2014, four people died in an extreme weather phenomenon in Lamalou-les-Bains, a small town in the north of Hérault.
• Six people were prosecuted for deficiencies in the management of this extreme phenomenon. The prosecution had requested legal proceedings for the mayor of the time and a dismissal for the others.
• The investigating judge considered that the charges were not sufficient for the prosecution of the accused. She requested a general dismissal, including for the mayor. The prosecution has appealed.

On April 22, the investigating magistrate of the Béziers judicial court rendered a general dismissal in the investigation relating to the floods which had caused the death of four people in Lamalou-les-Bains on September 17 and 18, 2014.

At the conclusion of a 29-page order, the investigating judge found that there were no sufficient charges against the six individuals under investigation. Including towards Philippe Tailland, mayor at the time of the facts of this town in the north of Hérault, of about 2,500 inhabitants. He had to make his tricolor scarf mid-term after the defection of a majority of his municipal majority, resulting in a new vote and the election of his opponent to the town hall, Guillaume Dalery (re-elected in 2020).

The prosecutor had mentioned "obvious shortcomings" in the management of the crisis

The prosecution had requested against Philippe Tailland the referral to the criminal court to be tried on counts of injuries and manslaughter. However, he had requested a dismissal against the other five people.

In his indictment in August 2019, the public prosecutor of Béziers at the time, Yvon Calvet, had estimated that after the judicial information, were established against the mayor of the time "obvious deficiencies , first in the assessment of the phenomenon (…), then in monitoring this phenomenon, and finally in the absence of a decision that, however, the situation required. If all these shortcomings can not be attributed to the mayor of the time who had taken office, it is true that only a few months before the facts, the failure, on the one hand, of the initiation of the municipal safeguard plan, and d On the other hand, the evacuation of the campsite, measures that were necessary (…), constitute gross faults. "

For the examining magistrate, the phenomenon was "unpredictable" and "anticipation impossible"

If she identifies several "shortcomings" or "failures in the assessment of the situation, vigilance and the implementation of devices", the investigating judge considers that they are not of the level of seriousness required by law which would make it possible to characterize criminal faults likely to be accused of the six individuals under investigation. The investigating judge concluded that the "wave phenomenon" at the origin of the fatal flood was an "unknown phenomenon, not listed, different from an ordinary flood and quite exceptional". She believes that it was "both unpredictable, irresistible, external and the exclusive cause of the dramatic events that occurred" and that "the apprehension and anticipation of this phenomenon was impossible to establish".

The Béziers public prosecutor's office, through the public prosecutor Raphaël Balland, appealed this dismissal order so that the whole procedure is subject to a new examination by the investigating chamber of the Montpellier Court of Appeal.

Montpellier

Floods of 2014: The mayor of Lamalou-les-Bains (Hérault) indicted for manslaughter

• Languedoc-Roussillon
• Court of Appeal
• Severe weather
• Justice
• Beziers
• Flood