The Fiber Excellence plant in Tarascon is at the heart of an air pollution lawsuit -

Sylvain THOMAS / AFP

  • The trial for pollution of Fiber Excellence, a paper mill in Tarascon, was once again postponed pending further information.

  • The new trial is due to take place on January 6.

Already postponed because of confinement, the trial for pollution of the Fiber Excellence pulp mill in Tarascon, in Bouches-du-Rhône, owned by a Canadian company, was once again dismissed on Tuesday by the criminal court , who asked for more information.

Fiber Excellence, owned by the Canadian firm Paper Excellence, is accused of "emission of polluting substances", in particular heavy metals and nitrogen oxides gases.

The plant is classified "Seveso" because of its potential dangerousness.

Missing elements

The defense requested the referral of the case, "at least on the civil side", because of the large number of civil parties (143), including each request, on the admissibility of the civil party and on the merits, must be examined separately by the court, pleaded Me Denis Borgia, counsel for Fiber Excellence.

After pollution and environmental criticism, a social storm is blowing over Fiber Excellence in Tarascon.



The environmental component will appear in court on Tuesday with more than a hundred civil parties: residents and associations.

To be continued on @Marsactu.

https://t.co/17Id42UP0J

- Pierre Isnard-Dupuy (@DupuyIsnard) September 21, 2020

The counsels of the civil parties, including the federation of associations for the protection of nature France Nature Environnement Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur or the League for the Protection of Birds, have also requested that the trial be referred.

They believe that important documents were missing from the criminal file.

Among these missing elements, administrative notices of formal notice from the company or even measurements carried out by the State services showing an exceeding of the “pollutant thresholds in May, July and August 2018”, defended Me Emilie Troncin, council of the Association for the Defense of the Rural Environment (Ader).

Complaint from residents

Tuesday morning, many residents of the factory, installed since the 1950s in Tarascon, appeared in court.

The inhabitants of the region, as far as Arles, nearly 20km to the south, are used to the smells of gas, of rotten eggs, coming from the factory: “The problem is that what comes out of this factory it's cadmium, heavy and dangerous metals ”, denounced Xavier Body, who lives 4 km from Fiber Excellence.

“The company has done some upgrades of course, some work, but it's like driving a car that's 50 years old and just changing a few parts,” he adds.

Bruno Schickelé, whose grandchildren are educated in the school next to the factory - where regulatory thresholds for pollutants have been exceeded - deplores "a blackmail in the employment" of Fiber Excellence, which employs nearly 300 people.

It was following complaints from residents that the Regional Directorate for the Environment, Planning and Housing (Dreal) had checked Fiber Excellence, establishing "a non-compliance with a certain number of regulations", according to a judicial source.

Fiber Excellence is owned by Canadian company Paper Excellence, according to its communications consultancy, itself owned by Jackson Widjaja, whose family runs Asia Pulp and Paper, an Indonesian giant of global stationery.

The trial has been postponed until January 6, 2021.

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  • Tarascon

  • Environment

  • Factory

  • Pollution

  • Justice

  • Trial