Marseille (France) (AFP) – Two unsanitary buildings which collapsed in a few seconds, eight dead and a traumatized city of Marseille: the appeal trial of the collapses on rue d'Aubagne, in 2018, opened Monday in front of the victims' relatives who came "with less tears but more rage".

Published on: 02/11/2026 - 02:27 Modified on: 02/11/2026 - 15:33

The debates on the responsibilities for this drama of unworthy housing must last until December 18. The court should then reserve its decision.

“There will be less crying and more rage,” said Linda, cousin of Chérif Zemar, who died in the collapse, very moved before the hearing.

“We come with a rage that we didn't have as much the first time because we thought that, perhaps, the defendants would show a little more compassion and be much more humane,” she added.

Relatives of the eight residents killed are still seeking exemplary sentences for those they consider responsible for the accident: on November 5, 2018 at 9:07 a.m., the buildings at 63 and 65 rue d'Aubagne, a few hundred meters from the Old Port, collapsed like a house of cards, after several warning signals were insufficiently heeded.

“Different” trial

In memory of the five men and three women, aged between 30 and 58, who lost their lives that day, "public criers" present Monday in court at the call of a collective against poor housing recalled the facts, using improvised megaphones.

At the end of the trial in autumn 2024, the court handed down ten convictions, including three in prison, six acquittals, and a fine of 358,000 euros, a less severe judgment than the requisitions of the prosecution, which had appealed.

“The low severity of the sentences” at first instance was a “disillusionment”, according to Kevin Vacher, spokesperson for the November 5 collective, born in the wake of this disaster.

The magistrate of the Court of Appeal Fabrice Naudé will have to lead the examination of a complex and technical case.

“This trial will necessarily be different,” he explained at the opening of the hearing. “First because the four magistrates are not the same as in first instance. (...) Different also because (...) the choices that the Court of Appeal will make will in essence be more definitive in nature,” he detailed.

Nearly 90 civil parties are represented against fifteen defendants, including co-owners of 65 rue d'Aubagne - where the victims died -, officials from the social landlord Marseille Habitat, experts, a former deputy mayor and representatives of the trustee.

All are charged with aggravated manslaughter. The first instance debates established that the collapses of numbers 63 (empty) and 65 were inevitable given the state of the building. But no sheltering of the tenants had been decided and the work undertaken had proven to be ineffective or even counterproductive.

Still 40,000 slums

And the defendants, co-owners as expert-architects or elected officials in charge of combating substandard housing, had entirely denied any causal link between their decisions and the tragedy.

“For us, the alleged offenses are involuntary and we have shown that no fault had been committed in view of the information which had been reported,” explained to AFP Erick Campana, counsel to the former deputy mayor Julien Ruas, who will again plead for his release.

According to the hearing schedule, technical debates will dominate the first two weeks of the trial, before the victims' relatives are given the floor.

The 2024 trial had also shed harsh light on the inaction of the previous municipal majority against substandard housing, in a city led for 25 years by mayor LR Jean-Claude Gaudin, whose party lost the town hall two years after the tragedy.

Poor housing remains massive in Marseille, a poor city with nearly 40,000 slums, with the left-wing majority claiming to have saved 1,000 buildings from danger.

© 2026 AFP

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