The general manager of the company in Lyon was questioned for several hours earlier this month by the two magistrates in charge of the investigation. “It’s a real relief but I am also unhappy to have had to go through all these battles and difficult steps to get here,” confides Sandrine Barthélémy. Last September, the mother had announced that she would begin a hunger strike to denounce “the slowness of the case”. This indictment is added to that of the bus driver, also prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter.
Five years later, the investigation, which seemed to be stagnating, has taken a new turn. “In this type of case, often only the driver is indicted. It is much rarer for the operator to be indicted,” adds the mother. Contacted in September, her lawyer, Maître Sannier, lamented that “only the driver is in the dock, whereas the danger of this pedestrian area – of which the town hall was warned – and the very configuration of the bus used, crowded that day, obstructed the driver’s view”.
The company Keolis declared to *Le Progrès* that “this indictment is a step in the judicial information and does not imply any presumption of guilt”. And to ensure that “what this mother who lost her daughter is going through is dramatic”.