After 15 years, Paris court listens the plea of Guadeloupe and Martinique farmers

Agricultural workers who had long demanded compensation for pollution caused by a pesticide banned in France but used on the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe finally had a day in court after a nearly 15-year wait.

Investigative magistrates in Paris held a video conference hearing last month with representatives of consumer, farm, and environmental groups gathered in a courtroom in Martinique to determine how the complaint, which has disappeared since 2006, is continuing.

"I have never given up," said lawyer Harry Durimel in a telephone interview in Guadeloupe. "This is a serious matter that deserves everyone's engagement."

The criticism focuses on chlordecone, a pesticide also recognized as Kepone, which was banned in the U.S. in 1976 after several notorious incidents, including the contamination of the James River in Virginia, and which are blamed for neurological problems, including cunning speech.

French health authorities have expressed concern that it may be linked to the high percentage of prostate cancer in the eastern Caribbean, and some studies have suggested that it may be related to unanticipated births.

It was professionally vended in France from 1981 to 1990 and was used for another three years in Guadeloupe and Martinique to uphold the banana calendar under an exemption granted by the French government.

Durimel and other attorneys allege that release was illegal. In this case, the French government is accused of not protecting the health of its people and not doing quite to recognize and define the results of chlordecone pollution on both islands, with a mixed population of about 750,000.

"They poisoned us in silence," Durimel said.

The French Ministry of Overseas did not return a request for comment.

According to Durimel, France considers the pesticide so risky that in October 2002, it ordered the burning of 1.5 tonnes of sweet potatoes arriving in the port of Dunkirk from Martinique because it contains chlordecone.

The pesticide is slowly breaking down, and some experts estimate that the pollution in Martinique and Guadeloupe will continue for decades or even centuries after the ban.

In Martinique, authorities provisionally forbade fishing in all rivers and some bordering areas in 2009 after almost all fish still sampled were still infected. U.S. studies in the James River found infected fish decades after Kepone was banned.

French officials had earlier banned the sale of goods containing chlordecone and ordered all soil to be analyzed before the root vegetables were grown. But the complaint states that the measures were not applied and that it did not impose heavy penalties. In 2002, authorities arrested several tonnes of chlordecone in Martinique and Guadeloupe.

'In the end, it appears that the state has failed miserably in its mission to protect public health,' according to the complaint lodged by the Guadeloupe Local Consumers' Union; SOS Environment Guadeloupe; the group Agriculture, Society, Health, Environment and the Union of Agricultural Producers of Guadeloupe.

Agricultural workers who had long demanded compensation for pollution caused by a pesticide banned in France finally had a day in court after a nearly 15-year delay.

An article in the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research from 2015 summarized the effects of the pesticide: "From 1999 to the present, the measurement of chlordecone in blood samples has revealed that a large part of the French West Indies population is still infected. "

It noted that 88% of the samples obtained from 100 adult men in Guadeloupe in 1998 included chlordecone, and in 2004, chlordecone was identified in 87% of the 122 women who were pregnant in Guadeloupe and in 77% of the breast milk samples.

Years later, according to a study from 2005 to 2007 in Guadeloupe, according to the article, chlordecone was found in 67% of the 623 men diagnosed with prostate cancer.

It has expressed concern about exposure during pregnancy and the development of infants "and possibly long-term effects such as cancer."

France has made several efforts to combat chlordecone contamination, and according to French officials, the latest plan, which will be started in the coming weeks, has a budget of $ 112 million, which is three times higher than the previous plan. Proposed projects for the next six years include examining tap water, taking blood samples, and observing people's vulnerability levels. Administrators also intend to plan soils to recognize the infected areas.

But many activists remain dissatisfied, and the French government itself noted in a previous evaluation that several areas need to be improved.

The future of the slow case is not clear. The magistrates in the High Tribunal in Paris said that evidence had disappeared and suggested that the limitation period may have expired on alleged damage caused by the pesticide. No date for a follow-up hearing has been set.