She was for more than 20 years the voice and representation of the League against road violence. Daughter of exiled Spanish Republicans, she was a trained psychologist and speech therapist. Contrary to tenacious urban legend, she did not found the association she chaired, nor did she take the lead following the death of a child. This comes from a confusion with the co-founder, Geneviève Jurgensen, who lost two daughters aged 4 and 7 in 1980.
Chantal Perrichon is a life to fight for. First to the MLF (women’s liberation movement), but also to highlight the concern for asbestos at the University of Jussieu, or other fights broader than road safety. An early activist within the association, Chantal Perrichon took over as president in 2002.
Annoying even in the Ministries
She then became the figurehead (and Turk) of a movement aimed at slowing down vehicles ever more. The argument is simple, the faster you go, the less serious the accidents. This fight, she will lead it until convincing the Prime Minister Edouard Philippe to pass from 90 to 80 km/h the departmental ones without distinction. She will also criticize the relaxation of the measure depending on the roads.
She will even be prosecuted by the former Minister of Transport and President of the Assembly of the departments, for “public insult” for having declared about the debate on the 80 km / h in 2019: “We are going to pay the blood price for the pseudo-responsibility of elected officials who prefer their mandate to the security of citizens”. She was acquitted by the Clermont-Ferrand court, which found that she did not exceed the limits of freedom of expression.
Since 2020 she had health concerns. Concerns that led her to step down as president after 20 years in office. She gives up the chair of president to Jean-Yves Lamant in December 2022. She has since been honorary president of the LCVR. She opposed frontally to the “lobby of the car” like the association 40 million motorists. She died on June 20, a few weeks before Claude Got, another champion of road safety, a zealous destroyer of speed (even if it means twisting the facts).
At the LCVR, we will have to reinvent ourselves without it. She embodied the association so much that without her, she risks falling back into the anonymity of road safety associations.
About the League Against Road Violence
Association law 1901, the LCVR was created in 1983 on the foundations of Afvac (Association of families of victims of traffic accidents). Four people from AFVAC, four women, four mothers bereaved by traffic deaths decided to launch the LCVR: Annick Brétagnol, Francine Cicurel, Geneviève Jurgensen and Odile Lesage.
This characteristic of the founders is the marker but also the “burden” of the LCVR which is often criticized for a lack of distance vis-à-vis road dramas. However, the LCVR has made progress in terms of road safety by constantly campaigning and dialoguing with politicians, the only ones capable of changing laws and traffic rules.
Historically campaigning in schools, colleges and high schools to raise awareness of road safety, the LCVR does not only have fans in the populations it intends to protect. Thus, LCVR has campaigned for the wearing of retro-reflective vests for cyclists, but also the wearing of compulsory helmets. This does not please some cyclists who see it as a “victim blaming”, namely, blaming the victim for the fault of his “executioner”.
The LCVR is against the relaxation of the loss of a point for speeding less than 5 km / h and still criticizes the relaxation of the limit to 80 km / h that the departments can generally go up, or in the case per case at 90 km/h.
