“We do not sulk our pleasure“, greeted Wednesday, December 22 on franceinfo Harry Durimel, mayor Ecological and proactive meeting of Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe), after the publication of a government decree recognizing prostate cancer linked to the pesticide chlordecone as an occupational disease. Mayor of Pointe-à-Pitre, however, calls for “go further” because “it is not only those who worked in the banana who are contaminated“. He announces that he will take legal action to broaden the scope of this decree.
franceino: You said that the chlordecone scandal is a crime that cannot go unpunished and that France must take action. Does the publication of this decree calm your anger a little?
Harry Durimel: Yes, we cannot shy away from our progress either, because indeed, for nearly twenty years we have been fighting to have the impact of this poisoning recognized not only on the soil, but also on ourselves. For us, it is a step forward and it is a step forward which would perhaps be of a nature to console us for the requisition of the public prosecutor taken in favor of a dismissal in the complaint that we have filed and we consider that it is nevertheless a step forward and we do not sulk our pleasure.
The government does not dare to give estimates on the number of people who could be compensated after the publication of this decree. You who are there, do you have an idea of the number?
This decree is restrictive. It could even be considered discriminatory because it limits the impact of this poisoning to the sole professional framework, yet we know today that in Guadeloupe and Martinique, more than 90% of residents are infected. By proposing to compensate only those who by their professional activity contracted prostate cancer, the account is still not there.
“Certainly, this is a step forward, but indeed, there is a mass of West Indians today who are contaminated. We are far from the mark.”
Harry Durimel, Mayor of Pointe-à-Pitreto franceinfo
We hope, along the way, now that the causal link between our prostate cancers and chlordecone is implicitly recognized, that we will come to understand that it is not only those who worked in the banana who are contaminated. I ask him [au gouvernement] to keep his word and go to the end since for the moment, we are not there.
You are therefore talking about a decree that could be discriminatory. Do you intend to take legal action to extend the effects?
Absoutely. We will also ask the judges to lift the secrecy on the mass of documents collected and all the information gleaned during these twenty years of combat and which is in the judicial file. We will ask for the possibility of using it to seek redress. I think that it is not at the individual level that Guadeloupe should seek redress. It is the regions of Guadeloupe and Martinique which must request that a plan be implemented in order not only to compensate, but also to prevent. Because as you know, it is through the umbilical cord that children are infected in their mother’s womb. Today, if we want to prevent the new West Indian man from being chlordeconated, we will have to be able to shelter couples who want to give birth so that unborn children are protected.