Objective: to ensure that no more vehicles equipped with an airbag from the Japanese brand Takata are in circulation on French territory. The State is launching an information campaign, which supports the initiatives of automobile manufacturers who are recalling the vehicles concerned. Their owners are invited to change their airbags free of charge, without delay. It’s a matter of life and death.
We know it now, because the victims (killed or seriously injured) are numerous: the Takata airbags are defective. By deploying (sometimes unintentionally), they can expel metallic components at very high speed, such as bullets from a firearm, likely to hit people in the passenger compartment, often drivers.
ALSO READ: Defective airbags: equipment that continues to kill in Guadeloupe, despite the identified danger – 12/14/2024.
Everyone should know this and affected motorists should have their airbags changed. A free and rapid operation around which the State communicates, in support of the vehicle recall launched by manufacturers.
Overseas prefectures are involved: from January 8, 2025, it is up to them to inform overseas motorists.
Many vehicles built between 1998 and 2019 are equipped with Takata airbags which can cause serious or even fatal injuries to the driver and front passenger. These injuries are caused by the projection of metal fragments when the cartridge bursts, which should normally allow the airbag to inflate.
Extract from the press release from the Guadeloupe prefecture – 01/08/2025.
The cars concerned can be driven for years without any incident occurring. But tragedy remains possible.
-For reasons of humidity and heat, vehicles traveling in overseas departments and regions are more exposed to this risk linked to the aging and deterioration of these airbags.
Extract from the press release from the Guadeloupe prefecture – 01/08/2025.
It costs nothing to make sure everything is OK. So check to be sure.
If necessary, contact, as quickly as possible, a repairer/garage for the brand of your vehicle, “who will replace defective airbags free of charge and unconditionally“, indicates the Palais d’Orléans in Basse-Terre.
GOOD TO KNOW: For this airbag replacement operation, the vehicle is immobilized for less than half a day, specifies the prefecture.
The posters of this information campaign launched by the State will be visible in service stations and several places of public service (prefectures, town halls, etc.).
TO GO FURTHER: Government documentation is accessible > by clicking here.
Contacts for builders are available on this page of the website of the Ministries of Regional Planning and Ecological Transition. There are several people involved in this affair: Audi, BMW, Citroën, Cupra, DS, Ford, Honda, Jeep, Land Rover, Mazda, Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Opel, Seat, Skoda, Suzuki, Toyota, Volkswagen…
