According to a judicial source requested by AFP, a note from an assistant specializing in labor inspection was issued in October 2019.
Still from the same source, it was then the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), contacted in mid-2020, which in a report assured that the exposure of employees to ionizing radiation was “very low”, but that it was not possible “to rule, incontestably, as to the total absence of effects during exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation”.
Since then, the plaintiffs have filed a complaint in October 2023 with the creation of a civil party to obtain the appointment of an investigating judge.
The judicial source confirmed on Tuesday that the Paris public prosecutor’s office opened a judicial investigation on March 26 for endangering others, employing a worker whose activity exposes him to ionizing radiation without a compliant risk assessment and without respect for the rules. prevention.
“We hope that the investigation will allow responsibilities to be cleared,” indicated, requested by AFP, Me François Lafforgue, lawyer for the Henri Pézerat association, the CGT departmental Union of Cantal and several of its branches as well as than two natural persons.
“Alerts”
According to the complaint, many agents of Orange, formerly France Telecom, were “exposed, sometimes despite their alerts, to radioactive surge arresters”, possibly until 2015, without the company even “having an authorization allowing it to handle or possess” “radionuclides”.
Surge protectors, small glass tubes measuring between 1 and 5 cm, are devices for protecting electrical or electronic equipment to prevent surges on the lines.
They were installed by hundreds of thousands from the 1940s throughout the French network, on boxes and line distributors, until their ban in 1978.
Inside, according to the plaintiffs, radioactive elements such as radium 226, tritium and thorium 232.
They began to be removed in the early 2000s.
As early as 2008, the CGT considered in a press release that “nothing (had) been planned to recover and correctly eliminate these radioelements”, nor “to alert agents to the risks incurred during their handling or storage”.
In 2009, the CHSCT (health, safety and working conditions committee) of a France Telecom unit based in Riom-ès-Montagnes had “observed an abnormally high number of cancers declared by” local “employees who handled (these) surge arresters without protection”, with “storage in the building where they worked”.
Seized, an expert firm estimated in 2010 that France Telecom had underestimated “the risk”, according to the complaint.
At the end of 2010, the Auvergne Labor Inspectorate issued notice to France Telecom to “measure the risks, ensure information and effective protection of employees”.
After the discovery of other employees potentially exposed and several disputes, the general “withdrawal plan” initiated by Orange in 2015 had, according to the complaint, generated new employee exposures.
Asked by AFP, Orange assured that “since the risk attached to radioelement surge protectors was highlighted in the 2000s, France Telecom then Orange have carried out several studies aimed at identifying the equipment in question and the possible risks that they presented. »
“The results of these various assessments have all confirmed that the potential exposure levels are much lower than the limits allowed by the regulations for public exposure,” Orange certified.
