Collapses on Rue d'Aubagne in Marseille: prison sentences for co-owners, suspended sentences for the elected official and the expert

This judgment, delivered more than six months after the trial, was awaited by an entire city, traumatized by the collapse of two buildings on November 5, 2018, in the heart of Marseille, including 65 rue d'Aubagne, where eight tenants lost their lives.

Of the 16 defendants in this case, ten in total were ultimately sentenced, including only three who received prison terms, three co-owners of number 65.

The most severe sentence, four years in prison, two of which were to be served under an electronic tag, was imposed on Xavier Cachard, then elected to the Paca regional council, who, along with the building manager, was guilty of the "most serious misconduct" in this case, according to the criminal court.

As a co-owner and also the property manager's lawyer, he adopted "a strategy of obstructing the completion of necessary work" in the building, with "a clear influence over decisions and votes," not to mention his "deplorable indifference" to the state of the accommodation he was renting, asserted the president of the Marseille criminal court, Pascal Gand.

Just before Xavier Cachard's case was addressed, the hearing was interrupted for nearly 40 minutes after another co-owner fell ill and collapsed when he was told he was guilty.

Prison sentences and fines

As the president listed the numerous works – risks of ceiling and floor collapse, exposed electrical wires, insufficient heating, mold, bedbugs – that Sébastien Ardilly should have undertaken, with his parents, in the accommodation they were renting from a Comorian family, including an eight-year-old child, the defendant collapsed, requiring the intervention of the fire brigade.

Sébastien Ardilly was finally sentenced to three years in prison, one of which was firm, with an electronic tag attached, while his father Gilbert received the same sentence as Mr. Cachard.

Significant fines of up to 100.000 euros were also imposed on the Liautard firm, the trustee of 65 rue d'Aubagne.

The court therefore largely followed the civil parties, who had directly summoned the co-owners of 65 rue d'Aubagne, the only building inhabited at the time of the tragedy, after they had been spared from the investigation.

For the defendants who had been prosecuted by the investigating magistrates, the court, on the other hand, was more lenient, handing down only suspended prison sentences, particularly against the only elected official implicated in this case, Julien Ruas.

Then deputy mayor of Jean-Claude Gaudin, the city's LR mayor from 1995 to 2020, and responsible in particular for substandard housing, he was sentenced to a two-year suspended prison sentence and a five-year ban from holding public office. "You have not taken any action to implement a proactive policy to combat buildings in danger," the president said.

Architect Richard Carta, who had botched a visit to the building just days before the tragedy, immediately allowing the residents to return to their apartments, received the same sentence, along with a permanent ban from practicing his profession.

"Teleprison"

As they left the hearing, Marseille residents, who had come in large numbers to listen to this decision in a city plagued by substandard housing, shouted "murderers" as the main defendants walked past them.

"It's a rather lenient judgment (...), we were expecting more. And indeed, we're still in shock," reacted Anissa Harbaoui, co-president of the Assembly of the Displaced, regretting that there was "no prison sentence" and equating the electronic monitoring sentences with suspended sentences.

"It's teleprison," denounced another member of the Assembly of the Displaced, Stéphane Lécolier, comparing these sentences to "teleworking."

The six weeks of debates in the autumn established that the collapses on 5 November 2018 of numbers 63 (empty) and 65 were inevitable, given the state of the building.

But the investigation only referred four people to court: Julien Ruas, Richard Carta, and two legal entities, the trustee of number 65, the Liautard firm, and Marseille Habitat, the social landlord of the city of Marseille, owner of number 63, left in a state of ruin.

Insufficient for some civil parties who had therefore summoned 12 additional people to appear, including several co-owners.

In the end, 16 legal entities and individuals were therefore tried for various offenses, including involuntary manslaughter through a manifestly deliberate violation of a security obligation, an offense punishable by up to five years in prison, and subjecting vulnerable people, including at least one minor, to unfit accommodation conditions, offenses which can carry a prison sentence of up to ten years.

During the proceedings, the defendants contested the case en masse, with the lawyers pleading for successive acquittals.