A painful image that never leaves their minds.
Georgia and her 15-year-old daughter Melaïna saw their cat die, cut in two by a train in Montparnasse station in Paris, on January 2, they report on BFMTV.
Indignant at the inaction and indifference of the SNCF, they demand justice to prevent the tragedy from happening again.
The mother and daughter are standing on the platform to board a train, bound for Bordeaux, when their cat Neko (cat in Japanese, editor's note), transported in a crate, manages to escape.
The adventurous animal then takes refuge under a train.
It was quickly spotted by its owners who alerted several controllers to prevent the vehicle from leaving.
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"
It's only a cat, it's not our problem
," one of them replies to Melaïna.
"
The agents tell us that we should have kept him on a leash
," she recalls at the microphone of BFMTV.
Despite the teenager's insistent requests, they forbid her to save her animal herself, for security reasons.
"Sad Incident"
After 20 minutes of negotiations, the SNCF does not change its mind and the train starts as planned.
"
We saw him running under the train, it was the last time I saw him alive
," says Melaïna, who found the body lying on the track a few minutes later.
The animal was cut in two by the train.
“
The scene was very violent, it was like an execution
”, is moved Georgia: “
They have teams which clean the ways, they could have gone there
”.
It is only after the death of the cat that the controllers offer Georgia to recover the body of the animal.
"
I don't understand: we couldn't go down to save our cat alive, but it is now possible to recover it dead
", indignantly the mother of the family, adding that she firmly refused the proposal.
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In an email addressed to BFMTV, the SNCF declared "to
regret this sad incident
" and "
to be concerned about the animal condition
".
For Georgia, this is not enough: "
If the law does not protect animals in transport, this must change so that it never happens again
".
animal protection
Since then, this tragic story has been widely shared on social networks.
Many figures in the fight for animal protection reacted.
The Brigitte Bardot Foundation challenged the railway company on its procedures: "
It is surprising that the SNCF does not join in the strengthening of animal protection
".
Environmental activist Hugo Clément was also indignant on Twitter: “
Aren't you ashamed?
[...] The cat was accessible.
The owners wanted to go get it back.
SNCF refused
.
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Since 2015, the animal is recognized in its nature to be living and sensitive in the Civil Code: “
Animals are living beings endowed with sensitivity.
Subject to the laws that protect them, animals are subject to the property regime
.
