A rally and a book to shed light on the dead on the job

The rally is scheduled for 14:00 p.m. place d'Ajaccio in Paris (VIIe). A delegation of 18 members of the collective will then be received by members of the cabinet of the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt. Trade unionists, elected officials and representatives of the association "Angry Cordists, Solidarity Cordists" will also be present.

Fabienne Bérard, 54, is the instigator of this unprecedented approach. His son, Flavien, died on March 5, 2022 at the age of 27, hit in the head by the fall of a heavy metal part on an oil drilling site.

"Flavien dies in appalling circumstances, we don't know exactly what happened but the metal part that came off and hit him had already fallen before", accuses AFP his mother, professor of English in Confolens (Charente).

"My son was in remission from cancer, it was a terrible emotional shock. We find ourselves facing all the procedures, we are very helpless, very alone, not in our best shape to manage all this (... ) After two months, all the steps are launched, we are told: we just have to wait. (...) I couldn't wait, I had to be in the action", she testifies.

Fabienne Bérard then contacted Matthieu Lépine, who had been listing fatal work accidents on Twitter and on his blog for several years. Through her, she discusses with other bereaved families, and creates the "Family Collective: Stop death at work".

The collective demands in particular that deaths at work be brought to more light by the government and the media, that legal procedures be simplified and accelerated, "that the convictions of companies be exemplary", that the labor inspectorate have more means , and that the public authorities develop "all the necessary preventive measures".

France bad student

Because these deaths, "too often relegated to the rank of miscellaneous facts" are "societal facts" on which the public authorities can act, believe the families.

An analysis developed by Matthieu Lépine in his book, "The Invisible Hecatomb, Investigation into the dead at work" (to be published on March 10 at Seuil). “The hundreds of work accidents that occur every day in France are far from being news items, they are absolutely social facts,” he writes.

Chapter after chapter, the author endeavors to demonstrate how the precariousness of work (temporary work, subcontracting), the abolition of Health, Safety and Working Conditions Committees (CHSCT) in 2017, the reduction in the number of labor inspectors (from 2.031 in 2014 to 1.800 in 2021) encourage accidents in the workplace.

France is a bad student in Europe, with 3,5 fatal accidents per 100.000 people in 2019, compared to 1,7 on average in the EU, according to Eurostat data.

And according to documents from Dares, the statistics department of the Ministry of Labor, the number of deaths rose from 476 in 2005 to 790 in 2019, notes Matthieu Lépine – an increase that the Ministry of Labor puts into perspective, however, stressing that in 2019, the discomforts, "which in the past we did not systematically recognize", were reintegrated into the scope.

The question of the number of industrial accidents was violently invited on February 13 in the hemicycle of the Assembly, when the deputy LFI Aurélien Saintoul - who will be present at the rally on Saturday - reproached the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt of having "lied" about the death toll, and called him a "murderer".

Words that neither Ms. Bérard nor Mr. Lépine approve of, but which will at least have made it possible to shine the spotlight on work accidents, underlines the latter. “The question is more interesting,” he notes.