A thousand people, according to the organizers, 580 according to the police, demonstrated on Saturday in Rouen to commemorate the first anniversary of the fire at the Lubrizol factory, which deeply marked the inhabitants.
"Lubrizol guilty, state accomplice", could one read on the banner of head, which followed many pennants CGT and NPA.
The demonstrators took up this slogan, as did “Polluter pays, liar state”.
On a sign, we could also read: “Je Suie Rouen”.
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Lubrizol fire in Rouen: one year later, the anger has not subsided
Starting from the Lubrizol site on the left bank of the Seine, the procession, in which was the deputy for the environment of the city, Jean-Michel Bérégovoy (EELV), then headed for the city center.
Some tensions in the procession
“We have been fighting for justice here for several months.
Industrialists behave in a dangerous and disrespectful manner, ”said EELV MEP Marie Toussaint.
“A year later, we are not forgetting.
We ask for the truth about pollution.
The State must take its responsibilities ”, assured Mathilde Panot, deputy France Insoumise.
The demonstration was marked by some tension when members of Extinction Rebellion docked at the Jeanne d'Arc Bridge, a major artery connecting the two banks of the Seine.
The demonstration stopped for a moment and the police took a long time to manage to dislodge the militants, then proceeding to several arrests.
The fear of "another catastrophe"
Speaking when the procession stopped, Gérald Le Corre, health / work manager at the CGT, expressed the fear of "a new disaster" in the Rouen sector which has 13 other Seveso high threshold sites because, he said, "the State and the industrialists have done nothing for a year".
The police use construction equipment to disrupt the demonstrators who have an arm in a "flower", a bin from which several sealed pipes leave pic.twitter.com/P7jnZh3H7g
- France Bleu Normandie (Seine-Maritime, Eure) (@fbleuhnormandie) September 26, 2020
For Paul Poulain, a specialist in industrial risks and who represents the “Notre Maison Brûle” platform, “the problem today in France is that we lack the means to apply the rules in terms of industrial safety”.
He also denounces the fact that companies which are not in order "are not always sanctioned".
In a national press release, EELV calls for the creation of an Industrial Safety Authority, like the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), and the strengthening of the control of this type of facility.
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"We regret that the lessons of the disaster have not been learned and that the law on the acceleration and simplification of public action (ASAP) […], examined from September 28, comes down to reducing the obligations imposed on industrialists [ …] And granting too many exemptions from environmental law, ”EELV wrote.
In Paris, a few activists, in connection with the appeal of the “Notre Maison Brûle” platform, gathered in the 15th arrondissement, on the site of the Lafarge de Javel concrete plant.
505 tonnes of chemicals gone up in smoke
“Lafarge pollutes, Lafarge releases!
“, Advocates Danielle Simonnet, LFI Paris advisor.
The cement company has a project to rebuild and develop its concrete plant, "5 meters from the Seine, an ecological corridor to protect and our common heritage", according to her.
Since the end of August, Lafarge-Holcim has been the subject of an investigation for suspicion of pollution of the Seine, in the Bercy district.
The Lubrizol fire, which occurred on September 26, 2019 on a site classified as Seveso high threshold, that is to say particularly dangerous, had caused an immense cloud of black smoke 22 km long with fallout of soot in a large Ray.
Nearly 9,505 tonnes of chemicals had burned in this automotive lubricants factory and on the neighboring Normandie Logistique site.
The fire caused no casualties.