Chlordecone: State ordered to compensate two former agricultural workers

Developing Parkinson's disease or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and its form of multiple myeloma: in a decision handed down Monday, May 12, the administrative court of Martinique recognized these risks as moral prejudice due to anxiety. The court ordered the French government to compensate two former farm workers in the environmental and human scandal that is chlordecone , an ultra-toxic pesticide, in the Antilles.

The judges considered that they provided "sufficient evidence to justify compensable moral damages in the form of anxiety, after having noted that the interested parties had worked for more than ten years in a banana plantation, as agricultural workers, and that they had participated in this context in the manual spreading of chlordecone in the cultivation areas, without protective equipment" , summarized the administrative court in a press release accompanying the decisions. The court therefore ordered the State to compensate the two victims, to the tune of 10,000 euros each in compensation for these damages.

These convictions come two months after a decision by the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal in March, in which it ruled that the State must now compensate victims of chlordecone who demonstrate this moral prejudice of anxiety .

Seized by 1,286 plaintiffs from Martinique and Guadeloupe, the court had ruled that "the State had committed errors", in particular "by granting authorizations for the sale of chlordecone-based insecticides" and "by allowing their prolonged use" .

Only around ten victims were recognized as being eligible for compensation, due to the difficulty of establishing the evidence (blood tests and environmental studies) to demonstrate "actual exposure to pollution of the soil, water or food chain" and a high risk of developing a serious illness.

In turn, the Martinique administrative court noted a "series of errors" committed by the State and "likely to engage its liability", particularly in the authorizations for the sale of chlordecone-based pesticide products, which were banned in 1990 but which were subject to exemptions in order to allow the use of stocks remaining in banana plantations until 1993.