In 2021, 700 people lost their lives at work. Another 39,000 were seriously injured. Too often through negligence or lack of prevention.
700 people died at work in 2021 in France, during serious and fatal accidents, often due to serious failures in prevention and safety.
franceinfo: A lack of prevention and safety, like this fatal accident, which occurred in 2017, in an industrial pastry shop, in Seine-et-Marne?
Sarah Lemoine: A young 26-year-old fixed-term employee discovers plastic bags thrown away by mistake in a dumpster filled with paste waste. He decides to retrieve them, goes down into the dumpster, and gets stuck up to his chest. He is asphyxiated by the carbon dioxide fumes emanating from the leaven. He died a few days later.
The manager of the pastry shop was sentenced…
After more than 4 years of legal proceedings, she was sentenced to 6 months in prison, suspended, and damages for involuntary manslaughter. A few months ago, the analysis of the accident was published by the Ile-de-France services of the Ministry of Labor. It lists all the serious prevention and safety failures which led to this conviction.
First, the risk linked to getting into the dumpster was not formally identified by the company. There were no signs prohibiting access. No procedure either, to recover poorly sorted waste. Neither pole nor gaff, made available to employees.
With two deaths per day on average, France is one of the worst performers in Europe. How can this be explained?
The answer lies partly in the profile of the victims and the types of businesses involved. Young people, temporary workers, fixed-term workers and seasonal workers are the most affected by serious and fatal accidents. Therefore the least experienced, least integrated and most precarious employees.
Then, these accidents are more numerous in subcontracting. On construction sites, for example, large groups outsource the most dangerous risks by calling on small companies. The latter sometimes ignore prevention, which represents a waste of time and money. The government has just announced general mobilization, with a prevention campaign at the national level.