A decree issued by the prefect of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region reveals that temporary approval has been granted to the company organizing the stay of disabled people who died on Wednesday August 9 in a holiday cottage in Wintzenheim (Haut-Rhin).

The stay was organized from Nancy by an agency called Oxygène Vacances Adaptés. The operator’s previous approval had ended on April 25 and the company had submitted an application for renewal, we can read in the decree of July 7. But the “numerous exchanges” with the company “did not result in the file being declared compliant” with the rules concerning stays for disabled people.

These rules “must make it possible to ensure the skills of the organizer (…) who must in particular justify his motivation, as well as the quality of the holiday service which must be built around a real holiday project” , explains a 2015 ministerial document.

But in view of “the interest of beneficiary holidaymakers” and the “extremely tight deadlines for canceling stays” in the summer, the prefect granted temporary summer approval for this type of trip “over the sole period from July 8 2023 to August 31, 2023”, as noted by the online media Rue89 Strasbourg. It is up to Oxygène, during this period, to transmit “imperatively all the missing documents to the instruction of its request”.

The boss of the agency heard by the investigators

Eleven people, including a guide, among the sixteen who were part of the same group, died in the fire of the gîte located on the floors of a recently renovated old barn. A total of 28 people were present in the building at the time of the fire. The vacationers and supervisors of the Idoine association, based in Besançon, were accommodated in a second gîte, on the ground floor. They all got away unscathed.

According to the legal information site societe.com, Oxygène was created in October 2017. Its head office is in Lyon, with agencies in Nancy and Villeneuve-d’Ascq (Nord). On the online brochure of Oxygen adapted holidays, the description of the stay in Wintzenheim is always detailed: the holidaymakers had paid 2,689 euros to register for this three-week trip, which was to extend until August 19. The gîte is described there as “a completely renovated 1870 house of 400 m2”.

Asked by Agence France-Presse, Oxygène vacances Adaptées did not respond. His lawyer, Alain Jakubowicz, clarified that he would only respond “to the investigative services”. However, he clarified that on the very day of the tragedy, the boss of the agency was heard by the investigators after having “immediately” gone to the scene when he became aware of the fire.