A French court has ordered SNCF to be fined for "negligence" for fatally running over a cat that got caught up in tracks after running away from its owner.
The death of "Neko" — a cat in Japanese — at the Montparnasse station in Paris sent shockwaves last January, and even Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he was "shocked."
The tragedy struck when two passengers - Georgia and her 15-year-old daughter Melania brought the furry production with them to the high-speed train at the station just before it was due to set off for Bordeaux in the southwest of the country. But Neko had other plans and fled under the cars. For a full 20 minutes, the two tried to persuade the train crew to help them rescue him, but to no avail.
The vehicle, as already mentioned, eventually left the station, and the cat lost its life. "We saw him split in two," Melania told an animal rights group. "They told us it wasn't their problem, and that it was just a cat and that we had to put it on a leash."
According to the two, the railway company offered them an alternative ticket as compensation. As stated, the court decided to fine the company and now it must pay a thousand euros for the negligence. Although the law allows for a fine of about 75,1 euros, the court ruled that the killing was "unintentional" and therefore the stated amount is much lower. In addition, another SNCF-affiliated company will pay each passenger an additional €000,<> for their aggravation.
As a lesson learned from the incident, the interior minister announced that police officers deployed at all thousands of stations would receive appropriate training to deal with similar incidents.
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