France’s deadliest road accident, the tragedy on the A6 motorway near Beaune, remains etched in memory forty years later. The memory is all the more painful when recounted by one of the survivors.

On the set of the film “Ça commence aujourd’hui” (It begins today), she revisited this traumatic event to honor the memory of the victims, including her entire family.

On July 31, 1982, a terrible tragedy occurred on the A6 motorway near Beaune in the Côte-d’Or region: it was the deadliest road accident in France, killing 53 people, including 44 children.

Most of the victims were on board a coach that was traveling with another bus to a summer camp in Savoie. This horrific pileup made headlines due to the sheer number of casualties. Sixty-two people survived, including Sylvie.

The then fifty-something-year-old mother of four spoke about this tragedy on the program “

“Ça commence aujourd’hui” (It begins today), led by Faustine Bollaert. With dignity and strength, she described how she survived this exceptionally brutal event, tragically losing her two brothers and sister, who were also on the bus, at the age of 15. The two buses in question were traveling in July of that year from Crépy-en-Valois in the Oise region to Aussois in Savoie for a summer camp organized by the Family Benefits Fund. Sylvie was there with her siblings and cousins ​​for what was supposed to be a pleasant vacation. That day, in heavy traffic, rain, and at high speed—the exact speed remains unknown—the vehicles entered a dangerous section of the highway where it narrows from three lanes to two. Sylvie remembers switching seats so her younger sister could sit in the front next to her friend. She moved to the back of the bus, which saved her life, but not her sister’s:

That’s my problem; I should have stayed with her. Since then, she’s been plagued by a deep sense of guilt: why her and not others?

Twelve of my family left, and I came back completely alone,” Sylvie says with tears in her eyes. Coming to the set, she wants to think about all those who died, her family and others, as well as those who survived, like her, and who had to continue, even learn, life again.