A first.
Never had an association lodged a criminal complaint against a public transport company.
The association "Respire" does it.
On Monday, a complaint was filed with the Paris prosecutor's office on charges of aggravated deception and unintentional injuries.
The association hopes that the complaint will be transferred to an investigating judge at the public health center.
“Respire” considers that
“the RATP conceals information from its users bound by contract, since they buy tickets or subscriptions”
, explains Maître Cancelier.
"Vital information since they are exposed to a dangerous situation for human health"
, she continues.
This last point constitutes an aggravating circumstance to the deception.
The advantage of this last offense is that, unlike
"unintentional injuries"
,
"it is not necessary that the risk has materialized"
, emphasizes Julia Cancelier.
According to the association, the RATP cannot ignore this information since two successive opinions, one in 2001, signed by the Superior Council of Public Hygiene of France, then in 2015 by the National Health Security Agency of the food, environment and work, concluded the first
"to an abnormally high pollution in underground railway enclosures",
and the second to
"a concentration of fine particles greater than the outside air"
, recalls Maître Cancelier.
To this are added the two measurements carried out by “Respire”, in 2019 and 2021. In the meantime, the RATP had replied that it was investing all the sums necessary to remedy the situation.
In vain according to Respire, which also disputes the RATP's own measures, which it considers biased.
Controversies over measures in Auber and Châtelet
In September 2019, the association estimated that air pollution inside the metro was up to 10 times higher than on the surface.
What the RATP had responded to by means of its pollution measurement system in three stations, in Auber, Châtelet and Franklin-Roosevelt.
But the data from these last two stations had not been communicated since July 2018, deplored the association at the beginning of the year.
It had therefore conducted, with the support of Jean-Baptiste Renard, research director at the CNRS, in Orléans, measurements with a tool called LOAC (Light Optical Aerosol Counter), to calculate the pollution of fine particles.
This instrument is already on board the Generali balloon, at the André Citroën park, in Paris.
It has been used there for almost ten years to calculate very small particles (up to 0.2 microns in diameter), by measuring diffraction and light scattering, which makes it possible to count particles.
Then, in January 2021, after measurements using this instrument between September 24 and September 2, 2020, in three stations of the RATP network, Respire noted in Châtelet that
"the data are false"
, because
"the sensor is clogged and gives overestimated and inconsistent values ”.
At Auber, the measurements are
"well above the usual values"
.
The only point of consensus is the data from the well-ventilated Franklin-Roosevelt station.
However, the data in the other stations give values of fine particles, without correlation with the data of the Squales network, set up by the RATP.
And the association deplores an
“not very efficient”
air purification device
installed in the Alexandre Dumas station.
Then these measures ordered by Respire, and supported by the Autonomous Transport Union of the RATP, led to a pass of arms on the relevance and quality of the measures.
The dispute will now be played out in the courts.
