A new campaign to provoke an “electroshock” in public opinion. The government is tackling the prevention of serious and fatal workplace accidents. It is “unbearable that in 2023 we can still die at work due to negligence, or lack of prevention”, declared Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt at a press conference, stressing that many of these tragedies “ could have been avoided.
The scourge of work accidents still kills two people per day in France each year, according to the figures recalled by the minister, who speaks of “a form of floor that we cannot cross at around 700 deaths per year”, for more than 15 years old. Available on television, radio, social networks and in the press, the campaign has the slogan “Corporate responsibility, everyone’s vigilance”. It intends to contribute to creating a “culture of prevention and risk reduction”.
France, a bad student on a European scale
Certain types of profiles are overexposed to the risk of fatal accidents at work, like new hires, temporary workers and seconded workers. Hence “the importance of welcoming” future employees and “training actions” put in place by the professional branches, insisted Olivier Dussopt.
Faced with more frequent heatwave episodes, the minister evokes a “new difficulty” and announces the implementation of regular and reinforced prevention actions. In 2021, there were still 640,000 work accidents, including 39,000 serious and 696 fatal, according to figures from Health Insurance and the MSA.
A poor performer at the level of the European Union, France ranks fourth among the countries most affected by this scourge, behind Latvia, Lithuania and Malta, according to Eurostat data for the year 2021.