“Building 75 where the explosion took place is old, but that does not mean that it is dilapidated at all”. Freddy Ragot, elected CGT at the CSE of Manuco, wants to put things right. After the explosions which injured eight people in a hangar in the Bergerac powder factory on Wednesday August 3, the CGT of Eurenco, the main company present on the site, denounced the “dangerous working conditions”the “lack of investment” and the “obsolete” installations. “Of course, there are always investments to be made, but investments have been there for years.”assures the trade unionist on the contrary.
“Everyone who enters receives security training”
To understand, you have to untangle the immense mechanism that is the Bergerac powder factory. An industrial complex spread over several kilometers long, classified Seveso “high threshold”, which has existed since the First World War. The ammunition for the Leclerc tanks and Caesar guns, which are the pride of the French army, are manufactured there. And a whole myriad of companies are based there. The main one, the Eurenco group, markets ammunition for armies around the world. But the explosions took place in the building of a group company, Manuco. A manufacturer of nitrocellulose, the highly explosive component that is used to make gunpowder.
The company is 100% owned by Eurenco, but it operates on its own. Its employees. And his CGT elected officials, like Freddy, who does not agree with the observation of his fellow trade unionists at Eurenco. The man does not speak by chance. His job is precisely security. He is in the prevention service for health, safety and the environment, employed at the blowing snow for 26 years. Building 75, he knows it well. “It’s a nitrocellulose processing workshop”explains the trade unionist: “There are no stocks as such on site, the nitrocellulose passes transiently because it is transformed in different stages”.
Nitrocellulose is such a particular and perverse product that we learn about it every day
At the time of the events, the hangar was undergoing maintenance, as part of an annual shutdown to service the machinery. Boilermaking, changes in piping, pumps. And it is subcontractors who intervene for this annual maintenance. Several of them are among the injured, alongside two employees of the Manuco company. The investigation opened by the courts for “unintentional injuries in the course of work”will endeavor to understand if breaches may have been committed to the safety rules on the site.
Freddy Ragot points out that the security protocol is particularly strict: “Each person who enters Manuco receives a safety welcome, where all the risks associated with nitrocellulose are explained. These are training courses that last for 45 minutes to an hour, which are validated behind with a questionnaire”. Even when workers are working, safety inspections take place to verify that they are following all protocols.
Eurenco evokes a role of “high temperatures” in the explosion
The trade unionist recognizes it, however, “nitrocellulose is such a particular and perverse product that we learn about it every day”. In a press release, released Friday morning, the Eurenco group claims that it is a maintenance operation “Who was the cause of the accident”and “the high temperatures and especially the very low humidity rate may also have played a role”. The damaged building was “secured”specifies the group according to which “there is no other damage inside the site and there was no impact on the environment or outside the site”.
The investigation opened by the Bergerac public prosecutor’s office was entrusted to the city police station and to the Central Office for the fight against damage to the environment and public health (Oclaesp), the judicial police for the environment. An administrative investigation is also being carried out by the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis of Accidental Risks, created in December 2020 after the Lubrizol accident in Rouen. According to Bergerac prosecutor Sylvie Guédès, the first on-site findings should be carried out next week, “we are working on hazardous materials. No risks should be taken”.