Toulouse lawyers launched an online subscription Monday to allow people refusing the installation of Linky meters to initiate class action against Enedis, the EDF subsidiary. According to them, this could lead to the largest French collective action. A petition addressed to the company, which had collected more than 12,500 signatures, had gone unheeded.

REPORTAGE

"It's screwed and locked, so we can't remove the counter to put another one instead". The rest of her building is equipped with Linky meters, but Jacqueline resists. This Toulousaine opposes, at all costs, the installation of Enedis meters. With the members of the collective that she set up, they all started a petition for the EDF subsidiary to respect their choice. A text which collected more than 12,500 signatures, but which remained a dead letter for the company.

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"A spy device"

Faced with the firm's refusal, she fully intends to participate in the collective action initiated by Maître Christophe Leguevaques. "No text to date provides for imposing the installation of this device, which is presented as a counting device but which is actually a spy device, since it allows profiling the consumption patterns of households and therefore to sell this information to commercial companies ", he affirms at the microphone of Europe 1.

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Linky meters, which have caused a lot of controversy since their launch in 2015, allow the electricity distributor to limit power or cut electricity remotely. It is not the first time that the courts have been seized of this matter. In August 2019, 430 people who opposed the installation of the Linky meter at their home were dismissed before the court of Nanterre, in the Hauts-de-Seine.

5,000 € compensation per claimant

Collective action would allow as many people as possible to go to court with cheaper service. The individual subscription amounts to 8.20 euros per month over 24 months, or less than 200 euros. On the initiative's website, the petitioners are demanding the "depollution of electricity against the new carrier currents online" and the obtaining of non-pecuniary damage, "up to 5,000 euros per claimant".

#linky Opening of registrations for the largest collective action launched in France from Tuesday 25/2 (if we manage to debug everything or rather if super @lexprecia still has a sleepless night) https://t.co/wnopnUN20t

- christoleguevaques (@ CLeguevaques31) February 24, 2020

Maître Christophe Leguevaques criticizes Enedis for intimidation methods to force people to accept the replacement of their counter and hopes that several complainants will be able to obtain the reinstallation of an old counter, like that of Jacqueline. "We were a little impressed by our landlord to remove these barricades and I absolutely refuse to do so (...) We are standing firm," she concludes.