Pierre Palmade tested positive for cocaine after the serious car accident which injured four people on Friday evening. Drugs were found at the actor’s home, in Seine-et-Marne, during a search Sunday according to Franceinfo.
[Mis à jour le 13 février 2023 à 10h34] Were drugs found at the home of Pierre Palmade searched this Sunday, February 12? Yes according to information from France info who is however unable to specify the quantity or the type of narcotics found. The Parisian reports that the narcotics sergeants who came with their dog searched the actor’s home in Seine-et-Marne did not find any drugs, only drugs and a few syringes, non-incriminating elements according to the Ile-de-France daily.
More than two days after the violent accident which left four serious victims including the actor and a six and a half month pregnant woman who lost her baby, the investigation for “manslaughter” into the circumstances of the tragedy continues. The police favor the track of excessive drug consumption, which would have taken place in a context of a party mixing alcohol, drugs and sex according to BFM TV. Pierre Palmade would have spent the 24 hours preceding the accident caused by the loss of control of his vehicle at his home with four young people, described by a relative of the comedian in the columns of Parisian as former escort-boys with whom the actor is said to have since linked up. The accident allegedly happened when he wanted to go buy food, with two people who were present at his home.
Pierre Palmade is still hospitalized in the intensive care unit but his life is no longer in danger. The comedian will be heard by investigators under police custody as soon as his state of health allows. In the meantime, the police continue to search for the two individuals who would have fled the scene of the accident and who would have been seen by witnesses near the home of the actor. The two young people would have been filmed leaving the scene of the tragedy, Friday evening, by a camera embedded in a vehicle located near the accident. The couple of motorists and owners of the camera provided the recorded images to the police on Sunday February 12. The video is under review.
Two witnesses fled after the accident and are called on Monday, February 13, 2023 “to go to any police station or gendarmerie brigade to explain the facts”, announced the spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior. Camille Chaize on the airwaves of franceinfo. Objective: to provide more information to investigators on the circumstances of the accident, the victims of which are still in a worrying state. “Anything that will allow investigators to gather evidence is important,” insisted Camille Chaize.
The spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Interior also recalled the state of health of the victims of the accident. As a reminder, three people were on board the Renault Mégane that Pierre Palmade’s car hit on Friday February 10, 2023. Their condition is considered “serious” and the child’s vital prognosis is “committed”, specifies Camille Chaize, who explains on franceinfo to have received medical elements this Sunday evening.
According to information from Le Parisien, the two wanted people who were in Pierre Palmade’s vehicle before fleeing would be former escort boys that the comedian and actor would have “met on social networks”. According to the Ile-de-France newspaper, they had been staying with Pierre Palmade since Thursday February 9. The three men are said to have bonded over “regular relations based on the party”. It should be noted that the Melun public prosecutor’s office has requested that the video surveillance images of the town of Cély-en-Brière, where Pierre Palmade’s home is located, be requisitioned in order to have more elements on the route of the vehicle and the two fleeing people.
It was around 6:45 p.m. on Friday February 10 when the accident that involved Pierre Palmade took place on departmental road 372, which connects Dammarie-les-Lys to Villiers-en-Bière, in Seine-et-Marne. According to information from Parisian, Pierre Palmade’s car, a Peugeot 3008, allegedly hit a second vehicle, a Renault Mégane, in which was a pregnant woman, her brother and her six-year-old child. A third car, a Twingo driven by an 80-year-old man, then appeared and hit one of the two vehicles already in the accident.
According to witnesses cited by The Parisian, the car at the wheel of which Pierre Palmade was driving would have deported to the left lane, where the vehicle driven by the brother of the pregnant woman was arriving in the opposite direction. Witnesses claim to have seen two people get out of the vehicle driven by Pierre Palmade and flee after the collision. These two men, who would be in their twenties, could be prosecuted for failure to assist a person in danger.
Pierre Palmade had a valid driver’s license. According to the first elements of the investigation, he would have lost control of his vehicle on a straight line. The comedian tested positive for cocaine and substitution drugs. The alcohol test was negative.
The investigation opened by the Melun prosecutor’s office for unintentional injuries was reclassified on Saturday as “homicide and unintentional injuries by driver resulting in total incapacity for work of more than three months, by driver under the influence of narcotics”.
A video of the three cars involved in the accident was revealed on social networks by a journalist. We see the carcasses of the vehicles, from which the victims had to be extricated. The RD372 had to be temporarily closed. About twenty firefighters had to intervene on the spot. At their side, three medical teams from Samu also had to move in order to extract the victims stuck in two of the vehicles.
#Accident in Seine-et-Marne, involving in particular Pierre Palmade, the 3 damaged cars were evacuated a few minutes ago by tow trucks. The perimeter is lifted. pic.twitter.com/o4OPxw80Uz
—Thomas Cuny (@ThomasCUNY) February 10, 2023
Saturday, February 11, the family of Pierre Palmade has confirmed that the vital prognosis of the comedian was no longer engaged. The actor “has been placed in intensive care. His days are no longer in danger this morning”, wrote his relatives in a press release, taken up by BFM-TV Saturday morning.
After the accident, Pierre Palmade had to be extricated from his vehicle and rushed to the nearest hospital center, the Kremlin-Bicêtre hospital, in Val-de-Marne. The vital prognosis of the 54-year-old comedian was then engaged, reported The Parisian during the evening, confirming in passing the information of the Sunday newspaper that Pierre Palmade was in a state of absolute emergency.
Pierre Palmade is not the only victim of this tragic accident. The prefecture of Seine-et-Marne reported on Friday evening a report of “five injured including four serious”. A pregnant woman and her six-year-old child, who were in the second vehicle involved, were also seriously injured.
Saturday, the public prosecutor, Jean-Michel Bourlès indicated that the victim lost the child she was carrying. The fourth and last serious victim would be the brother of the pregnant woman, a passenger in the Mégane. The 80-year-old man who was in the third car was said to be slightly injured.
According to information from RTL, the vital prognosis of the child, the woman and the man present in the Mégane was still engaged, Saturday February 11. Relatives of the woman, who lost the child she was carrying, shared their concern about her state of health. The six-year-old boy, treated at Necker Hospital, suffered from skull and jaw fractures.
The RD372, where Pierre Palmade’s accident occurred, leads to the town of Cély-en-Bière, where the comedian lives. A house bought shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic, located not far from the Fontainebleau forest, explained in 2020 The Parisian, who had visited the artist in his home. Pierre Palmade’s house is located in an area that the comedian had already known twenty years earlier, when Muriel Robin had invested in the area and had “asked him to be his neighbor”.
According to several media, a search took place on Sunday February 12 at the artist’s home. The investigators, accompanied by a dog from the narcotics brigade, took over the premises in the morning, around 10:30 a.m. On the spot, they did not find the two wanted men who would have fled at the time of the accident. The track followed at this stage would be that of a party organized at Pierre Palmade’s in the 24 hours preceding the accident in the presence of four young people and embellished with “chemsex”, a practice combining drugs and sexual relations and supposed to amplify the pleasure of the partners.
Pierre Palmade, the accomplice of Muriel Robin and Michèle Laroque
Born on March 23, 1968 in Bordeaux, Pierre Palmade made a name for himself in the 80s with one-man shows such as “My mother really likes what I do”, “Do we know each other?”, “Passez me see on occasion”, but also shows put on with his accomplices Muriel Robin and Michèle Laroque: “They love each other” in 1996, and “They are loved”, in 2001. Shows nominated several times at the Molières and the Victoires de la Musique.
Father of a whole generation of comedians, Pierre Palmade is above all a figure of the one-man-show and private theatre. He’s a familiar face on TV and has starred in a dozen films. Pierre Palmade has regularly been talked about for addiction problems, sometimes speaking publicly about his work to get out of it. In 1995, he was convicted of cocaine use. More recently, in 2019, he chose to plead guilty to “use and acquisition of narcotics” following which he was sentenced to a fine of €1,500 with the obligation of a therapeutic injunction.