Two judges pronounced the end of the investigations into the poisoning of the West Indies with chlordecone, without questioning, disappointing the Martiniquais and the Guadeloupeans who had denounced the lasting pollution of their islands by this pesticide authorized in the banana plantations until 1993.
This is "an unacceptable injustice", writes Mélissa Camara, spokesperson for environmental candidate Yannick Jadot, in a press release.
More than 90% of the adult population in Guadeloupe and Martinique is contaminated by chlordecone, according to Public Health France, and the West Indian populations have one of the highest incidence rates of prostate cancer in the world.
"While we have known of its dangerousness since 1969, France authorized from 1972 to 1993, by derogatory procedures, the use of this substance in plantations. This health and environmental scandal is indeed a State scandal", insists the environmental statement.
"The Republic cannot consider that this file is closed when this use has lasting health consequences", adds Ms. Camara, who notes that "the 92 million euros released for the chlordecone IV plan are not sufficient".
She also points out that “the government decree recognizing prostate cancer as an occupational disease is insufficient. The majority of the workers who spread in the banana plantations were women workers”.
For the socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo, the possible dismissal "is scandalous".
"This pesticide has killed so many. There are women and men who are sick and who have to pay screening fees. I offer these fees free," she insisted on BFMTV and RMC.
Tuesday, at a meeting in Lille, the rebellious candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon also mentioned chlordecone, drawing the parallel with the presence of glyphosate in the urine "of more than 90% of French people".
"We are in a proportion comparable to what happened to our unfortunate compatriots from Guadeloupe and Martinique with chlordecone, and I regret that in the end, the judicial inquiry has been completed and the decision taken is that it is not there is no prosecution," he said.
© 2022 AFP