Two wineries that sprayed fungicides near a school in 2014, where students and a teacher were sick, were released Tuesday by the Libourne Criminal Court in the Gironde, AFP reported. judicial source.
"No certainty on the causal link"
The two castles, pursued by the Sepanso (regional federation of nature conservation associations of Aquitaine, affiliated to France Nature Environment), had been judged on 20 March 2019 as legal persons for "inappropriate use of plant protection products". The judges followed the prosecution's orders and "relaxed" the two castles, said Libourne prosecutor Christophe Auger.
At the hearing, prosecutor Sandrine Ballanger concluded her indictment, pointing out that there was "no certainty about the causal link between spraying and discomfort". "Doubt must therefore benefit the defendants," she said, asking for the release. Contacted, the lawyer of the Sepanso, Me François Ruffié, was not immediately reachable to react to this decision.
The plaintiffs wanted to "denounce the excesses of viticulture"
Sepanso wanted in this unprecedented trial in the Bordeaux vineyards "to denounce the excesses of viticulture", highlighting the "extreme gravity of the offense". In May 2014, more than a dozen students and a teacher from the primary school of Villeneuve-de-Blaye in the Gironde, complained of other symptoms of tingling eyes, sore throat, immediately after spreading fungicides on neighboring vines.
Castle Castel La Rose, in conventional agriculture, had used the fungicides Eperon and Pepper and the castle Escalette, in "bio", had spread Bordeaux mixture, Heliocuivre and Heliosoufre S. Of non-place in complaint against X, the procedure initiated in 2014 led to the dismissal on 3 July 2018 of the two wineries.