A collective of CGT unions and associations on Thursday called for the "total containment of the site" of Notre-Dame de Paris, polluted lead, and the creation of a health monitoring center.
The building site of the cathedral was suspended Thursday for "a few days" in order to "lay down" the rules of sanitary precautions for people working on the spot, these being "not sufficiently applied", had explained the prefect of 'Ile-de-France.
Stop "the spread of lead dust"
The burning of the cathedral on April 15 resulted in the melting of several hundred tons of lead contained in the spire frame and roof, which dispersed as particles. Since the fire, high levels of lead concentration, to which children are particularly exposed, have been noted around the building and a school group has been closed indefinitely for cleaning.
In order to stop the "dissemination of lead dust" especially in the districts near the cathedral, the collective of unions and associations demands that the authorities confine the site, wrapping the building and making sure that the internal pressure is lower than the atmospheric pressure, "said Benoît Martin, of the departmental union CGT.
Unions call for screening center
"It's about creating a slight depression" to retain the particles inside the Cathedral, a technique used to contain asbestos inside the university campus of Jussieu in the late 1990s-early 2000, Benoît Martin added. In its statement, the collective calls for the Labor Code "for all work involving the risks Carcinogenic, Mutagenic and Reprotoxic (CMR)". According to Benoît Martin, employees of private contractors responsible for evacuating the works of the cathedral following the fire have still not received the results of the blood tests carried out in the week following the incident.
Joined in their claims by the Association of families victims of lead poisoning and the association Henri Pézerat, the unions CGT so those of the police, early childhood, housing, the City of Paris or the police of Ile-de-France, request the creation in the hospital of the Hotel-Dieu of a center of tracking and follow-up "clinical, psychological and social" for "all the exposed persons". The collective wishes that "a rigorous mapping of lead pollution, as we have been asking each other since April", and "updated", be made public.