It is a construction site which cost a life, which could, according to the prosecution, have been avoided. This is why the Créteil public prosecutor’s office on Wednesday demanded a fine of 250,000 euros against the company & Campenon Bernard, a subsidiary of Vinci, judged for the death of a temporary worker employed on a site of the Grand Paris Express in the Val-de -Marl.
On February 28, 2020, Maxime Wagner, 37, was working in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) on the extension of line 14 of the Paris metro, in a tunnel boring machine, these huge machines over 100 meters long which dig tunnels from the metro.
While he was kneeling in the middle of the “unsealing” operation, that is to say in the process of unblocking a pipe, the latter, which should have been attached, operated a “whiplash”, a sudden movement. Violently hit on the head, the worker suffered a serious head trauma, from which he died several weeks later. “At the time of the accident, there was no device to hold the pipe in place,” recalled the labor inspector during the hearing.
Instructions clear enough?
The company Dodin Campenon Bernard and two hierarchical superiors of the victim, the head of attack and the director of works, were sent back to the criminal court for manslaughter. A nine-month suspended prison sentence was requested against the two men.
For the prosecution, the security instructions were not clear enough, which engages the responsibility of the defendants. “We feel involved in the accident, but criminally we have nothing to reproach ourselves for”, defended the legal director of the company, who compensated part of the family of the victim.
“Deep down, we feel we have done everything we could and should do in terms of prevention,” he added. “There are basic precautionary measures, such as keeping a distance, which have not been taken”.
“Blur” on the precautionary zone to be respected
“He was not aware of this risk, otherwise he would not have taken it”, retorted Me Christophe Bringer, the lawyer for the mother and sisters of the deceased, adding that there was a “fuzziness” on the precautionary zone to be observed around the pipeline. “What we say in the end to the employees is that it is up to them to understand where they should put themselves,” also regretted the prosecutor.
In addition to Maxime Wagner, three other workers died on the construction sites of the Grand Paris Express. All three died in Seine-Saint-Denis, on the line 16 construction site.
The deliberation will be delivered on June 29.