This is a first step forward for the victims of chlordecone: justice has recognized the responsibility of the State in this health scandal which has aroused indignation for several years in the West Indies. In a deliberation delivered on Friday, June 24, the administrative court of Paris estimated that “State services committed culpable negligence by allowing the sale of the same antiparasitic specialty containing 5% chlordecone”by registering this pesticide without prior “to establish, under the prescribed conditions, its safety on the health of the population”but still “by authorizing the continuation of sales beyond the legally provided deadlines”.
A substance classified as a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization in 1979, chlordecone was finally banned in France in 1990. But successive ministerial derogations allowed, until 1993, the use of this organochlorine pesticide in banana plantations in Martinique and Guadeloupe. Very persistent, the molecule has caused significant pollution of soils, waterways and marine environments in the two islands. Local food production is largely contaminated, and with it, more than 90% of the population of Guadeloupe and Martinique, which has one of the highest prostate cancer incidence rates in the world.
“Repair policy” expected
In this collective action started in 2019, on the initiative of several Caribbean associations, 1,241 applicants had asked the State to compensate them, up to 15,000 euros each, for the loss of anxiety resulting from the contamination of the territories. . A request rejected on Friday by the administrative magistrates, who considered that “the applicants do not mention any personal and detailed element allowing to justify the prejudice of anxiety on which they claim” and do not sufficiently establish “that they would have been exposed to a significant risk of developing one of the serious pathologies” caused by the pesticide. The applicants’ lawyer has announced that he intends to appeal.
This decision of the administrative court was welcomed with a mixed satisfaction of circumspection in the West Indies. Elie Califer, deputy (PS) of Guadeloupe, greeted on Twitter “an important step which now calls for real responsibility and compensation for victims commensurate with the tragedy and the damage suffered”. The jugement “is not the culmination of our fight”, recalls Serge Letchimy, president of the executive council of the territorial community of Martinique. “There are still many battles ahead of us, for justice to pass, for the damage caused to the environment and our health to be recognized and for a real policy of reparation to be put in place for the victims”adds the Martinican elected official.
You have 30.27% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.