French court weighs action over nursing home deaths
PARIS » One plaintiff lost her father in a nursing home last spring as the virus pandemic swept France. Another has fought for a year to keep her mother, isolated in another nursing home, out of depression.
They’re among multiple family members and advocacy groups who appeared in a Paris court Wednesday, in an unusual, collective legal effort to get answers from French authorities and companies about their management of the pandemic in homes for the elderly and disabled.
The families are trying to figure out who can be held accountable after the virus claimed the lives of tens of thousands of French nursing home residents, and families were locked out and left in the dark about what was happening to their loved ones.
As defense lawyers sought to dismiss the legal effort as frivolous and shaky on procedural grounds, frustrated
families in the courtroom gasped and sighed.
“Our parents are dying!” said Clara Bouaziz, whose father died early in the pandemic.
Wednesday’s hearing was the first step in a likely years-long legal marathon.
Families hope it will shine a light on what went wrong last year as the virus devastated France’s oldest generation and deprived their children and grandchildren of a chance to help or even say goodbye.
“We want to ensure that
mistakes aren’t repeated, that someone is held responsible,” said plaintiff Sabrina Deliry, who has mobilized families around France since her mother’s Paris nursing home was first locked down a year ago.