The ´97 accident in france is not only a sad day for pilots, but even more for justice. The skydivers jumped through a closed cloud layer and hit the twinseater glider flying about 500 ft below the clouds, so there were about 2 seconds between the skydiver falling out of the clouds and the collision. Nearly impossible for a pilot to react, even if he would have known that there are skydivers.
The parachutist was killed and both pilots survived. They were charged, mainly because they were closer to the cloud base as allowed (500 instead of 1000 ft). Nothing said about jumping through 8/8 AC might be illegal by the skydiver. Strange court there in france, especially for non french.
I am flying frequently at a (french) airfield with very mixed traffic (gliders, mororgliders, planes, microlight, models and parachutists) and it´s working pretty well. The parachutist´s plane announces the jumps 5 and 1 Minutes before and reports the moment when the skydivers are out. So if you listen to your radio, you are aware of the parachutists and there are no problems. If you are below 1500 ft on the 5 Minute anouncement, you are either allready on the ground or still well below opening altitude of the parachutes, if you are above you can easily leave the drop zone for a few minutes.