a phenomenon increasing by 9% since January 2025 on French roads

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Mathis Polart died on the eve of his 20th birthday, which he was going to celebrate with his family on Wednesday. Run over in the middle of the night, Saturday November 1, on a pedestrian crossing in Lille by a driver who was trying to escape a police check. Three days since his mother, inconsolable, has been plunged into incomprehension. “Sadness, collapse and anger, but anger because I hate these people who take their lives. I wonder if Mathis suffered. How did he experience the accident? Did he see the impact? Did he feel anything?”confides Laetitia Polart.

For her, this tragedy could have been avoided, the driver being already known to the police for several traffic offenses. “We have to crack down on these people, we have to scare them. They’re not afraid of anything. They feel powerful, but they don’t feel in danger from the State, from the justice system, from the law, from the police. They think they’re above the law, in fact.”believes the bereaved mother.

A tragedy which is added to the long list of refusals to comply recorded on the roads of France. Plus 9% between January and September compared to the same period last year, according to still partial figures from the Ministry of the Interior. Again this evening in Vaucluse, in Cavaillon, a driver refused to submit to a road check at a toll booth, injuring three police officers in his escape. Last Thursday, it was on one of the busiest arteries in Sainte-Maxime (Var) that gendarmes found themselves faced with a driver, ready to do anything to escape them.

Individuals who sometimes take all the risks, like one of them, filming himself hooded on a motorcycle in the middle of a chase with the police. Last year, 24,900 refusals to comply were recorded, or one every 20 minutes, endangering road users in one in five cases. “A person who decides to refuse to comply with a police check will go all the way. He is ready to take all the risks, even if it means mowing down pedestrians, even if it means knocking down people or putting the lives of the officials who pursue him at stake, he will not stop”recalls David Ghisleri, delegate of the Alliance Police Moselle union.

97% of the perpetrators of these crimes are men, mostly under 30 years old. In the event of endangering the lives of others, they risk 5 years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros.