19, Montpellier, October 2021

On the night of 12 October 2021, as Montpellier woke up to its evening lights, Aymane Legliti is riding through the streets of the city on his scooter, the eternal insulated bag on his back. Born on 27 December 2001, the young 19-year-old courier was only about twenty days away from turning 20. A birthday he will never celebrate.

That evening, at around 9.30pm, he is riding along avenue de Palavas towards the Près-d’Arènes district, one of the roads that link the outlying neighbourhoods to the beating heart of Montpellier. He wears the colours of “one of the well-known brands” of home food delivery, one of those logos that have become so familiar in the urban landscape, and whose name no one would ever reveal. It’s a coin toss.

At the same moment, a Mercedes driven by a 53-year-old local man comes the other way. At the junction with rue Frédéric Fabrèges, the driver turns left. The young courier cannot avoid the collision.

The emergency services take Aymane in a “desperate condition” to the anaesthesia and intensive care department of Montpellier’s university hospital. For three days, between life and death, he fought. But on Friday 15 October 2021, Aymane died of his injuries.

The Mercedes driver has since been the subject of proceedings for “involuntary manslaughter through negligence”, handled by the accident unit of Montpellier’s central police station.

He would be given a suspended sentence of a few months.