Overview
- The Angers court opened proceedings against Cholet mayor Gilles Bourdouleix over the 14 July 2022 fireworks that killed a 7-year-old boy and his 24-year-old sister and injured about a dozen people.
- Prosecutors say the city and organizers failed to enforce safety perimeters and did not install barriers, with spectators reported as close as 10–15 meters from the firing zone.
- The pyrotechnician is accused of using inappropriate or degraded rockets, and a victims’ lawyer condemns what he calls an alarming level of operational failure.
- Survivors began testifying to lasting trauma, including a teenage eyewitness who says she has required psychiatric care and still relives the scene at night.
- The defense argues the mayor had delegated municipal police powers to a security deputy, as the weeklong hearing proceeds with co-defendants including a deputy mayor, the lead pyrotechnician and his employer HTP, and the Cholet Événements association and its vice-president, with potential penalties up to three years in prison and €45,000 in fines.