Without a driving license and under the influence of drugs, a school bus driver taken into custody

Operations to check bus drivers continue on French territory. Following the death of a 15-year-old girl in a school bus accident in Châteaudun ( Eure-et-Loir ) on 30 January, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau called for "large-scale road checks" on school transport on 11 February.

In this difficult context, the police prefecture indicated on Wednesday that it had stopped a minibus "transporting children" the day before in Drancy (Seine-Saint-Denis), during a check operation. The police discovered that the driver was driving without a valid driving license, and under the influence of narcotics. The man was immediately arrested and then placed in police custody, Le Figaro learned from police sources. The Bobigny prosecutor's office did not respond to our requests.

In the week following the fatal school bus accident in Châteaudun, where the bus driver at the time of the fatal accident tested positive for cannabis, "49 drivers tested positive" for narcotics out of nearly 9,000 checks on school bus drivers , François-Noël Buffet, Minister of the Interior, announced on February 5.

While these control operations were scheduled to last a week, François-Noël Buffet had stated that they would "continue in the coming weeks" . According to the latest figures from the National Interministerial Road Safety Observatory, in 2023, 126,828 offences related to driving after using narcotics were recorded (+8.1% compared to 2022, +158.1% compared to 2017). Of the almost million drug tests carried out in 2023 (968,102 precisely), 13.7% were positive.