Darmanin says he is “particularly shocked”

Visiting a SPA in Essonne on Friday, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin reacted to the death of the cat Neko, crushed by an SNCF train.

Gérald Darmanin “particularly shocked”. During a visit to SPA on Friday, the Minister of the Interior reacted to the death last week of the cat Neko, who was crushed by an SNCF TGV at Montparnasse station in early January.

“I was obviously particularly shocked by what happened at this Paris station and particularly shocked by the way SNCF unfortunately handled this terrible affair,” the minister lamented.

On January 2, Neko escaped her owners’ attention on the station platform and took refuge under a train. Despite the pleas of the mother and her daughter to get the cat back, the SNCF agents refuse to intervene. “The agents told us it wasn’t their problem that we should have kept him on a leash… They added, ‘It’s just a cat,'” the teenager reported on the microphone of BFMTV.

“Lack of consideration for SNCF”

SNCF, contacted by BFMTV, had explained “sorry about this sad incident” and assured “to be concerned about the condition of the animals”. “However, it is strictly forbidden to walk down the tracks, which would endanger the lives of the two passengers or our agents,” the railway company added.

For Gérard Darmanin, there are “two things to understand in this situation”: “the act itself, the death of this cat, which is not a trivial act towards its owners” and “especially a lack of control account from the SNCF” . “It’s even more serious because we have to prevent these actions from happening again,” he said.

“The investigation will say who is criminally responsible,” concluded Gérald Darmanin, while several complaints have been filed.