French court convicts technician and companies in fatal elevator accident

A French court has convicted a technician and two companies for involuntary manslaughter following a fatal elevator accident in 2018. The incident occurred at the Côté Seine shopping center in Argenteuil, where a four-year-old boy, Ismaïl, died after an elevator cabin fell abruptly, trapping him between the shaft and the landing.

Jean-Marc H., a 67-year-old technician, received an 18-month suspended prison sentence. His former employer, Bagneux Hydraulique, was fined 80,000 euros. The elevator manufacturer, TK Elevator (formerly ThyssenKrupp), was ordered to pay a fine of 225,000 euros, exceeding the 150,000 euros originally requested by prosecutors.

The court found that negligence played a role in the tragedy. The hydraulic elevator had previously experienced an oil leak in 2015 and had been repaired by the technician from Bagneux Hydraulique, a company subcontracted by TK Elevator. The family's lawyer noted that the ruling establishes that such incidents can be treated as criminal faults rather than purely civil matters.