A beautiful evening that turns into a nightmare. One summer evening 2023, Nathalie* and her family settled on the terrace of the Sénéquier restaurant, in Saint-Tropez. An upscale address, an institution itself, which owes its letters of nobility to the evenings of Brigitte Bardot or Picasso in the 1950s and 1960s. A placed place for tourists therefore, and a terrace near the yachts quickly full to crack.
“It was good, we were good, even if […] We were a bit glued, ”tells the mother to Parisian. However, she will keep this evening a still present trauma, two years later, a victim of serious burns caused by a server preparing a suzette pancake.
No legal proceedings or apologies
Shot to another table, the server settles with a pan and a stove, dangerously close to the mother. Despite her husband’s requests, the server does not take more precautions, and Nathalie does not have the place necessary to shift her chair. A few seconds later, it was projected on the ground, plagued by flames. “I burned. I yelled. It was as if I had thrown me acid. It was endless. Then I was sprayed with water. »»
-A fireball is clearly visible on video surveillance images, consulted by The Parisian. The nearby, overturned tables are quickly straightened, and Nathalie’s family took inside the restaurant. “I have the feeling that we want to hide us at the sight of other customers,” notes Nathalie. Firefighters and municipal police are called, but local emergencies are closed. “They then ask us lots of bizarre questions, as if we were responsible!” “, Nathalie is annoyed. The testimonies of other customers, however, converge on his story.
She files a complaint at the gendarmerie of Sainte-Maxime, then returned to Ile-de-France where the hospital in Garches notes burns in the second degree and prescribed 30 days of ITT. Psychological expertise supports its trauma. Since then, the investigation (still open to the Draguignan prosecutor’s office) has stalled. “I am amazed that from a judicial point of view, nothing has happened” since August 2023, denounces Nathalie. “She has not even received an apology,” deplores her lawyer. The Sénéquier, however, took care to remove the suzette pancake from the card.
*The first name has been changed
