Twenty years have passed but the emotion remains intact. The anger expressed the day after the events has dissipated a little, but the sadness remains the same. A sadness which, this Friday, gradually enveloped the surroundings of the Hauts-de-Seine prefecture as the tribute to the three police officers of the anti-crime brigade (BAC) of Levallois-Perret, killed in the accident of their car, during a chase, Monday, March 17, 2003, near the Clichy bridge.
As every year, the memory of the three men was honored. First at the end of the morning, in the strictest intimacy. At the scene of the tragedy, families, loved ones and a few former colleagues gathered on the quays, freed from the flow of motorists for a few minutes. Then, at midday, in the courtyard of the prefecture where the prefect Laurent Hottiaux, the police unions, the mayor of Clichy in turn laid a wreath at the foot of the stele erected in memory of the police officers who died in service. A ceremony without speaking, apart from a quick reminder of the circumstances of this tragic chase.
The car stuck in a tree
That evening, the four police officers of the BAC, aboard a Peugeot 106, had chased a man and his passenger traveling on a large gray scooter. Two men caught, a few minutes earlier, in the act of a purse snatching committed in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Launched at high speed behind the fugitives, the car of the officials then avoided a pizza deliveryman who came out opposite, on the lane on the bank. The vehicle then swerved and crashed head-on into a tree before igniting. Three of the four police officers – a brigadier and two peacekeepers, since promoted captain and lieutenants – died burned alive in this terrible accident: Hubert Paris, 32 years old, married, father of two children, Florent Niel, 30 years old, married and also father of two children and the youngest, Cyril Farre, 25 years old single.
“This drama, we think about it constantly, even twenty years later”, confides with modesty one of their former colleague who remembers “the pain of the whole profession”. The man also remembers the consequences of the tragedy. Of the sixteen police officers who made up the BAC of Levallois, all or almost all went far away, to other regions of France. Among the few to have remained: the survivor of the accident, still stationed in the Hauts-de-Seine.