A worker from the RATP accuses having exposed him to asbestos without protection for twenty years. Since October, a Parisian investigating judge has been investigating the RATP, and its subcontractor ERI, on this subject. Pascal (first name changed), 39 years old, employee of ERI since 2001, obtained after a complaint with civil action the opening of a judicial investigation targeting his employer and the company giving the order, in particular for “implementing danger to others”.
Contacted on these accusations by AFP, François Lhoutellier, president of ERI, replied that his group “has always respected the provisions of the Labor Code”. The RATP told AFP that it was “not aware at this stage of the opening of a judicial investigation against it”, and mentioned work “in accordance with the regulations concerning the prevention of asbestos risk”.
Asbestos, a ticking time bomb
In an interview with AFP at the beginning of February, Pascal assured that he had worked for twenty years on the repair of the electrical network of the emblematic stations of the Parisian network, more or less without respiratory protective equipment, and without having been informed before 2015 of the presence asbestos in electrical networks. An anxiodepressive syndrome has since been diagnosed to the one who worries about him and his family.
If he has not developed an asbestos-related disease at this stage, he knows that this insulating fiber banned in France in 1997 is a time bomb, causing years or decades after exposure diseases such as cancer of the lung or pleura. According to him, some of his colleagues “are not well. They are afraid. They know “. His lawyer, Me Leila Messaoudi, accuses the RATP and ERI of not having “respected the asbestos protocols”, which provide for “extremely precise obligations”.
Subcontractors, “big forgotten”
A first hearing on the prud’hommes side is scheduled for Friday afternoon in Créteil. Pascal is asking for the judicial termination of his contract and compensation for his damage. The presence of asbestos in the trains or the rights-of-way of the management resurfaces regularly, and the RATP has already been condemned, for example in 2002, for “inexcusable fault” for having exposed employees, without protection, to asbestos dust.
Me Messaoudi, she is sorry: the subcontractors “do not have access to the intranet base” of information on asbestos deployed by the RATP “and do not have the protection” for their health provided for by an agreement union signed in 2006 by the board. For her, these are the “great forgotten ones”.