Toulouse commemorates this Tuesday the deadly explosion of the AZF factory.

Tributes will take place in the pink city, but in dispersed order.

Local elected officials, representatives of the State and certain associations of victims, including former AZF employees, will meet around 10 a.m. on the site of the former chemical plant completely destroyed during the biggest French industrial disaster since 1945.

As every year on September 21, the sirens will sound at 10:17 am, the time of the explosion, then the names of the 31 deceased people will be given before the wreaths are laid and a minute of silence.

The LR mayor of Toulouse Jean-Luc Moudenc will then unveil a memorial trail made up of nine panels retracing the history of the factory, its industrial past, the disaster itself, then the post-disaster period with the trials and the renewal of the site, explains the town hall.

Two distinct commemorations

A little earlier, around 9:30 am, another commemoration will be held two kilometers away, at the so-called September 21 roundabout, in which the association of victims of September 21 and the association “More never that” participate. . They boycott the official ceremony, not being satisfied with the final result of the memorial journey. They also categorically refuse to appear alongside Total representatives whom they have always held responsible, and former factory employees.

Because 20 years later and despite the final conviction of the former director of the site and the company, the Mémoire et Solidarité association of former AZF employees rejects the thesis adopted by the courts according to which the unfortunate mixture of chemicals, due to "negligence" or "breaches of the duty of care", caused the explosion.

Transformed into a cancer research center

On September 21, 2001, more than 300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in a hangar at the AZF chemical complex, five km from the city center, exploded.

In addition to the 31 dead, the disaster left thousands injured.

The legal battle, which lasted 18 years, led to the conviction in 2017 of the former director of the site Serge Biechlin to 15 months suspended imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros.

The court fined the company that owns the factory and subsidiary of Total, Grande Paroisse.

Today, the chemical plant has disappeared, making way for a cancer research center and a photovoltaic power plant, but the epicenter of the explosion, the old "crater", remains an unclean wasteland.

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  • Factory

  • Jean-Luc Moudenc

  • Toulouse

  • Explosion

  • Tribute

  • Commemoration

  • Azf

  • Azf trial

  • Society