A woman saw her cat crushed by a TGV near Montparnasse station in Paris, when she asked the agents to intervene. SNCF says it “deeply regrets” this incident.
A brutal end. Georgia and her 15-year-old daughter Melaïna saw their cat Neko (cat in Japanese, editor’s note) run over on January 2 by a train from Montparnasse station in Paris. The passenger deplores the inaction as well as the lack of listening from the SNCF and demands justice.
The cat takes up residence on the tracks
The mother and her daughter are preparing to leave the capital in the direction of Bordeaux, in Gironde, when the cat, transported in a crate, escapes their attention and manages to get the trunk.
The feline has the bad idea to take refuge under a train. Its two owners quickly spot it and notify the station staff. “The agents tell us that it is not their problem, that we should have kept him on a leash …”, recalls Melaïna at the microphone of BFMTV. But no question of intervening for the SNCF.
“They told us: ‘it’s only a cat'”, recalls the teenager.
SNCF refuses to intervene
For security reasons, the transport company strictly forbids the two women to try to save the slightly too adventurous animal themselves. Contacted by BFMTV, the SNCF said “to regret this sad incident” and “to be concerned about the animal condition”.
“However, it is strictly forbidden to go down on the tracks, which would endanger the lives of the two travelers or our agents”, continues the SNCF.
After 20 minutes of negotiations, the railway company stuck to its guns and the TGV started as planned. “We saw him running under the train, that was the last time I saw him alive, he looked me in the eye because he must have heard me, he kept on run and then it was over,” says Melaïna. The cat ends up cut in half.
“The scene was very violent (…). It was like an execution”, denounces Georgia.
A “tragic situation” for the railway company
The SNCF then offers Georgia to recover the body of her cat. “I don’t understand: we couldn’t go down to save our cat alive, but it is now possible to recover him dead,” she laments, indicating that she firmly refused the proposal.
“They have teams going down on the tracks, they could have done it before (…) and we had time before the train left,” she adds.
“If the law does not protect animals in transport, that must change”, denounces Georgia today, who deplores the inaction and lack of understanding of SNCF agents. Melaïna recalls for her part that the two women paid an extra train ticket to be able to travel with Neko. She asks that “justice be done”.
