“This construction is a project that five of us launched. But when we moved in, there were only four of us left”. It’s been almost a year since Laure and François Marivain moved into their new house in the Nantes region, with their eighteen-year-old son, Evan, and their nine-year-old granddaughter, Perle. A new story that is written with a void in the middle, since Evan and Perle’s sister, Emmy, will never have been able to enjoy the room whose wallpaper she had chosen. Floral.
Emmy died in March 2022, before she was able to celebrate her twelfth birthday. The end of a long battle against illness for her, the beginning of another for her parents. Because before dying, Emmy made her mother promise to fight so that “everyone knows the truth“. A moment “out of time” for Laura. “She told me: ‘Mom, you have to fight, because we don’t have the right to do that to children. We have no right to poison them’. So I promised him that I would do everything I could to prove the link between his illness and my job as a florist.”.
A bond that the young woman, long passionate about her profession, took years to establish. When she became pregnant with Emmy at the end of 2009, Laure Marivain worked as flower representative for a wholesalerafter several years in a boutique, with an artisan florist. She receives the carts of flowers and foliage, installs the bins in warehouses, loads all the plants into trucks to deliver them to retailers. She considers herself lucky to work in contact with flowers. But from the start of her pregnancy, “things get complicated. I gained very little weight, and so did my baby”. The young woman was closely monitored and quickly placed on sick leave. Childbirth, too, is difficult.
Placenta all black
“When Emmy was born, she didn’t cry. She was all purple. The anesthetist told us that there was a problem with the placenta, that it was charred, all black. And then his results were not good. A midwife even asked me if I had taken drugs during my pregnancy”. But Laure didn’t do drugs. She has never smoked, and does not drink alcohol. The only toxic products with which she was in contact during her pregnancy were on the plants that she handled all day, without knowing that they could present a risk to her health and that of the child she was carryingt.
In the maternity ward, Emmy ends up gaining weight, and she is let home. It grows, while remaining on a low curve. “She was a dynamic little girl, she was always doing the weather vanecontinues Laure. But at three years old, she went to school for the first time, and she began to complain of pain, first in her coccyx, then in her knees.”. Bone pain that wakes her up at night. The teacher tells the parents that Emmy is falling asleep in class and that she is very tired. “Our little girl, who was so alive, was passing away”.
In January 2015, Emmy was examined in the emergency room of the Nantes University Hospital : bone scintigraphy and x-rays. At that time, Laure was already pregnant with Perle. At the end of the afternoon, she is resting in a box when her husband accompanies Emmy for a final examination. “When he came back, he said to me: ‘It’s strange, I saw several doctors arriving.’ And then we started to think, wow, this is turning sour.”
Not so harmless flowers
Laure and François are seen by a pediatric oncology doctor. “We didn’t even know what oncology meant. But we quickly understood. We were told to expect major cancer. My first reaction was to ask the doctors: How is it possible to have cancer at four years old? We were just told: that’s how it is, it’s bad luck’s fault. But today I know it has nothing to do with bad luck”.
A few days later, the diagnosis was confirmed. Emmy suffers from B acute lymphoblastic leukemia. A long fight begins. Emmy is regularly hospitalized. Chemotherapy, operations, transplants. Emmy is losing her hair. For seven years, she fought against illness and against pain, which never really left her.
Remission periods are short-lived. Each time treatment stops, Emmy squeaked. In 2018. 2019. 2021. “At the time of her third relapse, I started to inquire, to dig, because I felt that it was not normal, and I discovered that my job could have caused Emmy’s cancer.. Laure conducts her own investigation, to try to understand. She discovers that the roses that she seeded, the bouquets of freesias in which she loved to plunge her nose, the exotic flowers that she handled after eating her morning pain au chocolat, all these flowers that she loved so much, were perhaps not so harmless.
43 different pesticides
“I started looking for information about the flowers, where they came from, how they were treatedEmmy’s mother further testifies. And I discovered a dismaying situation. I realized that on a bouquet, there could be 43 different pesticides. I understood that flowers were invisible killers”.
For the young woman, it’s a shock. “No one ever told me that the flowers I worked with had been treated with toxic products, especially with banned pesticides that can harm your health. How could I have imagined such a thing? No one ever told me to wash my hands when I was eating, scratching my face or blowing my nose. For me, when something is dangerous, we warn people, we inform!”
Laure then comes into contact with l’association Phytovictimesdiscovered through his research on the internet. This association, which helps people suffering from diseases linked to pesticides, advises them to contact the Compensation Fund for Pesticide Victims (FIVP), created in 2020 by the social security financing law, so that it can be recognized. the link between Emmy’s illness and her prenatal exposure to pesticides. In February 2022, after having gathered all the necessary documents, Laure submitted the file to the Fund, while the little girl’s state of health declined considerably. Emmy is hospitalized in respiratory distress. She died on March 12, 2022, at the age of eleven.
In July 2023, a Fund manager telephoned Laure to tell her that the commission responsible for examining Emmy’s file, made up of researchers and doctors, had made its decision. “He told me that they had unanimously recognized the causal link between Emmy’s death and my job as a florist. That day the guilt was enormous. I said to myself: how could I be so naive! I’m the one who poisoned my daughter. This child that I wanted so much, I caused her loss. I exploded with anger. I told the doctor: but it’s poisoning! You realize what we’re letting happen! And he said, ‘I can’t tell you otherwise’.”
More risks for florists than farmers
It is this neglect that Emmy’s parents want to denounce today, through their testimony. Because the problem of pesticide residues on cut flowers is already well documented. A Belgian scientific study was thus able to demonstrate the risk incurred by florists. This study demonstrates that florists find themselves exposed to levels of pesticides well above levels considered safe for workers. To prove this, Belgian scientists took a total of 42 urine samples from professionals and formed a control group.
“This is not a potential risk. It’s a proven risk,” explains Professor Bruno Schiffers, honorary professor at the University of Liège, who led this study. “We were able to prove that pesticides passed the skin barrier and entered the body. The risk for florists is even greater than that incurred by farmers, because they are exposed to a cocktail of numerous pesticides, with a very high number of substances on each bouquet, including substances banned in Europe. However, they are not informed. They do not wear protective equipment. They drink and eat while they work, without being aware that they are handling toxic products in large numbers and in high concentration. And unlike farmers, they are exposed six days a week, all day, all year!”, concludes the scientist.
A lack of regulation in Europe
Unlike fruits and vegetables, there are no European regulations for flowers allowing maximum residue limits to be set. Nor, moreover, is there any control of these residues, particularly in imported flowers, which can nevertheless contain pesticides banned for use in Europeand in large quantities. 85% of flowers sold in France are produced abroad, particularly in East Africa and Colombia. “These flowers are potential killers, and no one warns either consumers or florists, who are the first to be exposed.”laments Laure.
The problem is however perfectly known to the French authorities, as shown a written response from November 2022, from the French Ministry of Agricultureto the question of a senator concerning the “toxicity of roses sold in France”. The Ministry of Agriculture thus admits that “for several years, studies have shown the regular presence, on ornamental plants, of residues of substances, some of which are not approved in the EU, at sometimes high levels”. A situation that “poses risks to the safety of professionals who handle plants.”
A proven risk for workers, but no regulations to protect them. As confirmed to us by Pan-Europe, a network of European NGOs which promotes the adoption of alternative solutions to the use of pesticides, and which has contacted the European Commission on this subject. “In its response letter, dated April 2022, the Commission explains to us that it has launched a study to take stock of the situation in Europe, explains the NGO network. It confirms to us that no labeling provisions, nor any particular risk mitigation measures are currently in place in the Member States concerning pesticide residues in flowers, and it specifies that no State requested to develop legislation on this subject”.
Challenge political leaders
A taboo that must end for Laure Marivain: “It’s simple. Everyone knows, but no one does anything. And during this time, there are families who are taking life sentences. Because no one will ever give us back our daughter. I no longer work in contact with flowers, but I am still in touch with the artisans. Above all, I don’t want to point the finger at them, but on the contrary to protect them.”
With her husband, Laure appealed to the Rennes Court of Appeal to challenge the FIVP’s compensation proposal. Because according to the family lawyer, Maître François Lafforgue, “The Fund has retained the link between Emmy’s death and her mother, but its offer of compensation is limited to the parents. This child suffered considerably, but there is a denial of her harm, because she died”. The Phytovictimes association calls for demonstrate in front of the court this Wednesday October 9, 2024 “to support the family in their fight”, and for “challenge political leaders and the general public on this largely ignored issue.”
When contacted, the Ministry of Agriculture and the federation of florists did not wish to answer our questions.
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