several hundred asbestos victims hope that a trial will finally be organized

A trial soon? The Paris Criminal Court must say this Friday, May 19 if it validates a procedure launched by nearly 2,000 asbestos victims to have 14 people tried. Former representatives of ministries, business leaders or doctors who, according to the plaintiffs, deliberately delayed the ban on asbestos, a carcinogenic fiber which could be responsible for 70,000 to 100,000 deaths by 2050, according to the High Council of Public Health.

For some, the fight began almost 30 years ago. Employees fell ill, others died after being exposed at their workplace to this fiber recognized as carcinogenic in 1977 but banned in France only 20 years later. From the end of the 1990s, legal proceedings multiplied but, in the vast majority of cases, the courts closed the investigations without prosecution, for lack of being able to prove the link between the illness of the employees and the responsibility of the companies.

End impunity

The Anti-Asbestos Jussieu Committee, an association that brings together the victims of the University of Jussieu in Paris, wants a trial to end the impunity of those responsible. “What is at stake are the responsibilities, and the victims want us to establish the truth so that it does not happen again”explained to franceinfo its president, Michel Parigot.

For the time being, several families have already been compensated as victims, without the criminal justice system so far being able to designate the culprits. “The asbestos affair is the biggest public health affair in Francerecalls Michel Parigot. According to the latest data from Inserm, there would be between 140,000 and 180,000 deaths (linked to asbestos). We are at more than 3,000 deaths a year.”