A paracetamol factory project near Toulouse which is causing an outcry from local residents. Do you remember Covid? Were we missing a mask? Frost? Vaccines? But also paracetamol? So much so that industrial relocation was at the heart of the 2022 presidential election.
However, in 2023, we had new shortages, leading to new rationings of Doliprane, which has become rarer than gold, major relocation plan in 2023 of 50 priority drugs. It is January 2025 and we finally have a beautiful French project supported by the State for almost 4 million and by the Occitanie region for 4.2 million.
An eco-friendly and innovative project, which, with tanks 10 times smaller, should generate 33 times less waste than a traditional process. A project which will be located on an industrial wasteland therefore without new construction. And oh well: this project should produce 40% of our national consumption!
Do we want a museum France or an innovative France?
But there was an outcry from a neighborhood committee worried that the site was classified Seveso, that is to say at risk. Except that if the site is classified Seveso, it is because it has chosen to store part of the active materials necessary for the manufacture of paracetamol. It was that or running a stream of noisy, polluting trucks all day to supply the factory. We bet that trucks wouldn't have pleased local residents any better.
This future site is located not far from the former AZF factory. When it exploded in 2001, it killed 31 people. This accident is an injury in French and Toulouse memory and we cannot minimize it. But let's be frank, we could have put this factory anywhere, it would have been an outcry.
As there is an outcry every time we try to build a prisonto extend a high-speed line, an RER or a metro, to complete a section of motorway or even to install a wind turbine. Major projects are fine as long as they're not in my garden… The question is: do we want a museum France or an innovative France? A dependent France or a sovereign France? In this unstable world, ensuring our sovereignty seems like a good idea.
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