a collective legal action launched to compensate local residents

This action aims to “request compensation from the State for non-professional victims of pesticides”, France Inter revealed on Monday.

A collective legal action was launched at the beginning of March to demand compensation for the “residents victims of pesticides”, on the same model as the fund created in 2020 for farmers, revealed Monday April 1 France Inter. Launched by the office of lawyer and former Minister of the Environment Corinne Lepage, this action aims to “request compensation from the State for non-professional victims of pesticides, by seeking compensation, based on the State’s failure to set distance limits to protect the population”we can read on the firm’s website.

The latter takes in particular as an example “the compensation fund for professional victims of pesticides”created in 2020 and which allows “to provide lump sum compensation to people who have suffered damage and whose illness is linked to occupational exposure to pesticides”.

“All residents of spreading areas located less than 150 meters from their place of residence”

Are concerned, “all residents of spraying areas located less than 150 meters from their place of residence, and in particular those suffering from the following pathologies, recognized as occupational pesticide diseases: prostate cancer, malignant non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Parkinson’s disease “. But the cabinet specifies that it is not only these sick residents who are concerned “since there is a proven risk to health, any local resident could request compensation, even if they do not suffer from any particular pathology”.

In a testimony collected by France Inter, the mother of a nine-year-old child joined the collective action because her son “triggered a very rare leukemia at the age of 5, with heavy treatments, which even resulted in a bone marrow transplant. When you suffer your son’s illness, when he comes close to death twice, he There are all these questions that alert you to the risks involved.” She lives in Picardy, on the edge of a field and research into the genetic causes of this leukemia has not been successful, pesticides may therefore be involved, reports France Inter.

“Carcinogenic products or endocrine disruptors”

For Corinne Lepage, the current situation constitutes inequality because “among the products we spread, there may be carcinogens or endocrine disruptors”or when he spreads, “a farmer must protect himself, it is a legal obligation, but the local resident has nothing at all! And he is not going to leave for 48 hours elsewhere“, she explains to France Inter. She therefore hopes, beyond the legal aspect, that this action will lead to better protection of local residents from pesticide spraying.

On the website dedicated to collective action, it is specified that a “minimum of 100 people” must participate for a petition to be formally filed in court. To date, 10% of the plaintiffs have been rounded up. A chat is planned for this Thursday on the Zoom site, to explain the approach and allow other victims to join the collective action.