Even if French law defines their status and strengthens their rights, whistleblowers remain very exposed. And according to Daniel Ibanez, organizer of the 8th Annual Meetings on the subject, their existence is the consequence of a failure of public power.
Without them, no WikiLeaks, Mediator, Clearstream or Orpea business: whistleblowers are at the origin of the great scandals of the 21st century. And a year after the implementation of the Waserman law, which is supposed to better protect them legally, becoming a whistleblower still means taking a huge risk. The Sapin II law, reinforced in March 2022 by the Waserman law and a European directive, offers a framework, a legal shield to whistleblowers. A whistleblower is any natural person who reports or discloses, without direct financial compensation and in good faith, information relating to a crime, an offense, a threat or harm to the general interest, or a violation of a commitment. international of France.
But many, determined to denounce an offense or an offense contrary to the general interest, hesitate to do so. There is the fear of being plastered, of being pushed to resign. The fear of threats, the consequences on social and family life, the financial aspect too, when you have to pay a lawyer for an indefinite period. Daniel Ibanez, organizer of the 8th annual meetings of whistleblowers, on November 11 and 12 in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), returns for franceinfo on the need to support these citizens who are often very alone in denouncing serious facts without putting themselves in danger.
Franceinfo: Is it easier today, in 2023, to be a whistleblower in France?
Daniel Ibanez: It is complicated. It must be remembered that whistleblowers are ordinary citizens. They are not heroes. They raise the alarm because what they are aware of seems to them to offend their republican conscience. But denouncing a medicine which harms others, acts which damage the environment, falls under the Environmental Charter or the Declaration of Human Rights. So, whistleblowers are ordinary people who only refer to the principles of the Republic. They raise alarms because, often, public authorities have not played their role of control and regulation over situations that contravene the principles.
The European directive for the protection of whistleblowers has made it possible to improve the situation of whistleblowers in the professional sphere. But there are a whole bunch of whistleblowers who are not affected by this protection law. Finally, it should be remembered that the labor code, due to the Blandin law, has an article which says that the worker must immediately alert the employer when he notices a risk to public health or the environment. Far from being a right that should be protected, alerting is a duty included in the labor code for employees, due to the Blandin law. And you can see that in fact, the question is not whether an employee alerts or not. The question is how is it that people can obstruct and repress a whistleblower when he has alerted when the labor code requires him to do so.
Are whistleblowers fully aware of the sometimes terrible consequences their actions can have on their own professional, family and social lives?
Not always. When a whistleblower says, for example, that Mediator is poison, he does not imagine that he will be drawn into a cycle that will harm him. When a whistleblower films himself pouring acid in a forest on behalf of a company, he does not consider that he will lose his job or experience consequences for his own family. But it is not the whistleblowers who take risks, it is those who hinder the reporting who put them at risk. And, here again, unfortunately, state services do not play their role. This is what happens for example on farms, when L214 shows, with supporting videos, animal mistreatment or health problems on farms. It also shows a failure of public power and controls carried out by the State. When whistleblowers suffer consequences such as loss of employment, it is most of the time because public authorities did not play their role. In a normally functioning society, whistleblowers should not appear. The alert should be directly processed by state services. But instead, the latter too often make economic and political trade-offs that are not in the general interest.
Radio France launches its online platform for whistleblowers. Listeners and Internet users can now transmit information on the alerter.radiofrance.fr site, anonymously and securely.