Geraint Thomas, Primoz Roglic, Jack Haig, Caleb Ewan and Peter Sagan were among those involved in the incidents, as Tim Merlier capitalised on a brilliant Alpecin-Fenix lead-out to take his first-ever stage win.
Madiot was left incensed after the stage, ruing the fact his rider Arnaud Demare was unable to contest the sprint finish after, too, being affected by the pile-up.
“We cannot continue like this,” Madiot said.
“There will be kids, fathers, mothers watching today and they won’t want their children doing this sport.
“We’ve got to change this because we can’t keep doing this in this way.”
“It’s not the route organiser’s fault, it’s everybody’s fault: the organisers, the teams, the riders, the international federations,” he continued.
“We need to get together and sort something out, it’s just talking all the time and nothing has been done.
“I don’t want to be in the situation where I have to phone up a rider’s parents and say their son is in hospital.”
It’s believed Jumbo-Visma had earlier asked for the race to be neutralised with eight kilometres to go instead of the usual three.
The request, however, was not approved – one Alpecin-Fenix star Mathieu van der Poel also shared his thoughts on.
“It’s always difficult to say or have an opinion,” van der Poel said.
“We’ve already had a lot of finals where guys crash, maybe the eight-kilometre point today was more for GC riders (and) would have made a difference, but also you then move the problem up to that eight-kilometre mark.
“For sure, the last 10km was a bit fast and stretched out but you also see crashes on straight roads.
“It’s also the riders who crash but for sure it’s a dangerous sport. You see how many guys crashed today.”
“There will always be the same debate every week about safety and that,” added Mark Cavendish of Deceuninck Quick-Step.
“I think the course and (those) things are (to be decided by) powers above us but I think the riders have as much responsibility to make it as safe as the course can (be).”
The Tour de France continues tonight with Stage 4 from Redon to Fougeres and you can catch all the action LIVE on SBS and SBS On Demand from 9:30pm (AEST), with SKODA Tour Tracker App starting from 9:15pm (AEST).
