The boyfriend of the waitress killed in the New Year’s inferno at a Swiss ski resort bar has revealed he spent an hour battling to save her life with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Cyane Panine, 24, died in the fire at Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana after she was filmed holding two champagne bottles fitted with sparklers while she sat on a colleague’s shoulders.
At a hearing into the tragedy, her boyfriend Jean-Marc G also disclosed the truth behind Panine’s relationship with the owners of the nightclub, who have previously blamed the waitress for the fire which killed 41 and left 116 injured.
Jean-Marc, in his thirties, was described during the hearing as the ‘adoptive son’ of the bar’s owners, Jacques and Jessica Moretti, who have been accused by authorities of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.
While he did not officially work at Le Constellation, he carried out jobs there such as repairing the ice machine or the speakers, and managed one of the Moretti family’s restaurants.
When the fire broke out at the bar, Jean-Marc told the hearing that Jacques Moretti, 49, ‘shouted to him’ that he had found Panine and was trying to perform CPR to save her.
He recounted how they spent the next hour trying to save her together, as he himself gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, before Jessica Moretti, 40, brought a doctor over.
Contrary to claims made by Panine’s family and her lawyer – who allege the waitress was exploited by the club’s owners – Jean-Marc said she was very close to the couple and spent Christmas at their residence.
The family are yet to comment on Jean-Marc’s claims, who had been dating Panine for a month before her death.
Cyane Panine, 24, died in the fire at Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana after she was filmed holding two champagne bottles fitted with sparklers as she sat on a colleague’s shoulders
She had previously told her parents she was made to work ‘relentlessly’ by the nightclub owners
The bar’s French owners, Jacques and Jessica Moretti, are facing trial for multiple charges, including manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence
The Morettis, who are French, have been scrutinised over the discovery that the blaze started when sparklers being held up in champagne bottles set light to the soundproof foam they had installed on the basement ceiling.
But throughout the investigation, they have pushed blame on Panine, alleging it was her decision to dance on her colleague’s shoulders.
‘I didn’t forbid her from doing that,’ Jacques Moretti previously told prosecutors, adding: ‘I didn’t make her pay attention to safety instructions. We didn’t see the danger. Cyane liked doing that – it was a show, she liked to be part of the show.’
Jessica Moretti, who was at the same hearing on January 20, echoed the sentiment: ‘Cyane liked to deliver these bottles – she did it of her own accord.’
‘It wasn’t the first time she’d done it, putting herself on someone else’s shoulders,’ she previously told a source close to the inquiry, referring to Panine’s actions on the night. ‘She did it on her own initiative.’
The Morettis have also consistently described Panine as like a ‘step-daughter’ and ‘sister’ to them, which Jean-Marc corroborated in his hearing.
A witness at the hearing told BFMTV that his testimony provoked a ‘very emotional moment’ in the room.
He said Panine nicknamed Jessica Moretti ‘Aunt Jessica’, and claimed the Morettis were deeply saddened that they were unable to attend the waitress’ funeral.
But Sophie Haenni, a lawyer representing Panine’s family, has previously said accounts of a close relationship between the employee and the Morettis are categorically false.
The lawyer said Panine had told her parents she was ‘worked relentlessly’ by the bar owners, was ‘mentally and physically’ exhausted, and was on the verge of making her ‘exploitation’ public before the tragedy.
The 24-year-old had even contacted the workers’ protection service over her employment conditions, and was apparently never informed about the dangers of the foam on the ceiling or received any safety training, according to Haenni.
The lawyer told the BBC that Panine ‘wasn’t supposed to be serving tables’ on the night of the fire, but had been asked to go to the basement to help manage high demand for bottles.
‘It wasn’t Cyane herself who decided to put on this helmet, it was at the request of her employers. She was just doing her job.
‘It is shocking to place the responsibility for their own failings on Cyane, a 24-year-old woman and their own employee.’
Moments before the inferno, Panine was filmed wearing a crash helmet from Dom Perignon, the Champagne brand, as she was lifted onto the shoulders of Mateo Lesguer, 23, the in-house DJ.
This was ‘at the request’ of Jessica Moretti, a witness claimed in an official report compiled by the Swiss authorities.
The Dom Perignon ‘motorcycle crash helmet’ covered Panine’s face completely with a black visor, meaning she could hardly see anything as she carried champagne bottles plugged with sparklers.
Mateo, who was wearing a carnival mask that also hid his face, tragically died alongside Panine in the bar.
Jessica Moretti, who is currently on bail and wearing an electronic tag, has confirmed the battery-powered helmet, which flashed from green to pink, was part of a stunt designed to sell champagne.
‘These are Dom Pérignon helmets,’ she said. ‘These helmets are delivered by our champagne supplier, and we wear them from time to time when we serve champagne.’
With her field of vision significantly reduced, Panine was unable to see the sparklers ‘touching the ceiling’, the official report reads.
Jacques Moretti arrives for a hearing before the public prosecutor of the canton of Valais on February 6
Swiss federal councillor Martin Pfister and his daughter Fabiola stand in silence in front of the memorial for the victims of the deadly fire, February 1
The New Year’s inferno killed 41 and left 116 injured
Some staff members at Le Constellation have claimed that the Morettis kept the emergency exit shut to stop people getting into the bar, while Italian media outlets have alleged that Jessica Moretti left the bar with the till when the fire broke out.
Under questioning, the Morettis have also said that employees had been responsible for locking the door.
In a letter to staff members, the couple have denied the ‘ignoble’ claims that they fled with the cash till when the blaze started, and have insisted that they ‘bear responsibility’ for the tragedy.
‘We bear this responsibility without trying in any way to pass it on to you,’ they wrote.
‘None of you should have to go through such an ordeal. You were under our protection and you will always be.’
‘One of the most ignoble [claims in the media] was about the immediate escape from the scene, with cash box in arm, while we were there, facing the chaos, terrified by those war-like scenes during that night of horror, trying to bring help, especially to some of you,’ the couple wrote.
‘We have been infinitely wounded by many of the calumnies that have been spread. At the same time, they have accentuated your pain and we deplore that. We won’t abandon you. We are bound by the same destiny and we will do everything in our power to help you.’
The bar owners wrote that they have been unable to pay staff salaries since the blaze because their accounts have been blocked, and they appealed to prosecutors to allow the payment of the wages.
Photographs show the very first moments of the Swiss Le Constellation bar fire in Crans-Montana
The blaze started when sparklers being held up in champagne bottles set light to the soundproof foam owners had installed on the basement ceiling
Jacques Moretti was arrested on January 9 following the fire, and a court originally ordered him to be detained for 90 days due to fears he was a flight risk.
But on January 23, the court said he could be released, after a 200,000 Swiss Franc (£190,000) bail payment and the obligation to report daily to a police station.
He was ordered to stay in Switzerland and to surrender his identity documents.
Investigators have established that 34 of the 41 who died in the fire perished on the bar’s small stairwell, which had been reduced in width by a third by Jacques Moretti during renovation work in 2015.
Following the inferno, the Swiss canton of Valais banned pyrotechnic devices in all indoor public venues.
Each of the victims will receive a 10,000 franc (£9,500) emergency payment, with a fund being set up to collect donations.
As the parents of 17-year-old Trystan Pidoux, who died in the fire, prepared to bury their son, they waited for prosecutors to act on their request for an autopsy.
When they heard nothing, Vinciane Stucky and Christian Pidoux proceeded with plans to lay to rest their second child.
But on the eve of the burial, medics arrived during the mother’s last vigil to take his body, forcing the family to cancel it and leave the pre-adorned grave empty, the parents and family lawyer told Reuters.
‘It was like they were still stabbing us when we were already dead,’ said his mother, Stucky, at their home in Pully, Western Switzerland, a short distance from where Trystan was buried three days later on January 16 alongside his best friend.
Due to his family’s request, Trystan was one of just a few of the victims – many of them teenagers on holiday – to undergo autopsies and only after Swiss authorities released the bodies, six sources following the case told Reuters.
Some of the relatives of the 41 people who died, and their legal representatives, say the fact prosecutors did not order autopsies of all the victims has shaken their confidence in the investigation.
Switzerland – already grappling with safety concerns over the fire – must now confront growing local and international doubts about its justice system.
Officials have stressed that the judiciary is independent and called for patience with the investigation into one of the country’s worst modern tragedies.
The Valais prosecutors, who are investigating crimes including negligent homicide, have previously defended their probe, saying they are expanding their team and have ordered searches, secured evidence and seized assets.
Romain Jordan, a lawyer for more than 20 victims’ families, said some were now weighing requesting exhumations.
‘When my clients recovered their child’s body, they believed that everything had been done. It is extremely disturbing and shocking to learn that, in reality, not everything was done and they may now have to exhume their child,’ he said.
Italy, which has criticized the Swiss investigation, carried out its own post-mortem examinations on the six Italian victims because it had not been done before their bodies were repatriated, a source in Rome’s prosecutor’s office said.
Autopsies are normally carried out in all cases of violent, suspicious or sudden deaths at the request of prosecutors, according to Swiss forensic institute URMF.
‘You have to ask: how did he die? Is it from burns? From smoke? Did people trample him?’ said Christian Pidoux, who has since received a preliminary autopsy report via prosecutors but does not yet know exactly how his son died.
Some of the victims of the fire – which spread within seconds – were found collapsed next to a locked rear exit, according to police transcripts.
Others were piled together near the main exit, which became a fatal chokepoint, while others died in the basement before they could flee.
As well as bar owners Jacques and Jessica Moretti, a former and a current local official are also under investigation.
The Morettis and the town’s mayor, who admitted missed inspections, have expressed regret.
Christophe de Galembert, Pidoux’s lawyer, said he had ‘very strong doubts about whether it will be possible to gather all the evidence now,’ citing other missed opportunities to secure proof quickly, including only seizing the bar owners’ phones nine days after the fire.
