The court ruled that they did not have sufficient information on the level of risk at the time of the tragedy.
The Grasse criminal court acquitted the Orpea group and two other defendants this Monday for the death of three residents of a nursing home in 2015 in Biot (Alpes-Maritimes), during floods.
The former mayor of the town was given a one-year suspended prison sentence.
On the evening of October 3, 2015, catastrophic storms transformed several rivers on the Côte d'Azur into torrents of water and mud, causing the death of 20 people and considerable damage.
In Biot, a hilly town of nearly 10,000 inhabitants north of Antibes, a wave of flooding devastated several neighborhoods and invaded the ground floor of the nursing home.
Three residents, aged 82, 91 and 94, drowned there.
Read alsoDeadly flood in a nursing home: “They express no regret”, lament the families of the victims
During the trial for involuntary manslaughter in January, the prosecution requested 18 months of suspended imprisonment against former mayor Guilaine Debras, 12 months against the municipality's natural risks manager Yann Pastierik and against the director of the nursing home. Anaïs Gledel, as well as a 50,000 euro fine against the Orpea group.
Prosecutor Alain Guimbard denounced their “total unpreparedness” on the day of the tragedy.
A plan that was not functional at the time of the tragedy
The court ultimately followed, for the last three, the defense lawyers who considered that they did not have sufficient information on the level of risk to take the necessary preventive measures.
The only person convicted, Guilaine Debras, was because the Biot “municipal safeguard plan”, a document which precisely sets out responsibilities and procedures in the event of an emergency, was not functional at the time of the tragedy.
Orpea, a private giant of nursing homes and clinics, adopted the new name Emeis last week to “mark a new stage in its refoundation”, two years after the scandal arising from revelations about the practices of its former management.