Ports de Paris tightens controls and plans sanctions against Lafarge

"If the preliminary investigation concludes with a deliberate act, it is the very existence of the installation which is called into question", even warns Antoine Berbain, general manager of Haropa-Ports of Paris. In this case, the public establishment will be a civil party, he added.

"The facts that we have seen at Lafarge have deeply shocked us" he continues. So much so that Ports de Paris will launch an action plan on Friday that will strengthen controls on the thirty concrete factories installed on the banks of the Seine in Ile-de-France.

"LafargeHolcim has put in place a very severe action plan so that this kind of problem never occurs again", replied a spokesperson for the cement company, requested by AFP.

"This action plan was communicated to Haropa, to representatives of the State and to the mayor of Paris," added the spokesperson, specifying that "the concrete implementation of the provisions of this action plan will be verified by an independent control office ".

The Managing Director of Haropa-Ports de Paris assures him that he wants to "draw all the consequences of this incident. We will strengthen our contractual requirements. Companies will have an obligation to warn us of an incident within twelve hours".

"We have a system of sanctions that we are strengthening", which can range from financial sanctions "to the termination of the license" to operate. If this title is terminated, the operator "must stop his activity and dismantle his installations", specifies Antoine Berbain.

This action plan also sets up a process for unannounced site inspections by Ports of Paris. Until then, the institution carried out an annual audit and the company was notified of the date.

Finally, the text provides for the creation of an email address, drse@paris-ports.fr, to allow residents to report incidents or share their suspicions with Ports de Paris, which "undertakes to respond within 48 hours to requests ". "It will also be a way for us to orient our controls", specifies the general manager.

The Paris City Hall estimated with AFP that these decisions were going "in the right direction: stricter rules and more frequent checks".

"We have been asking Ports of Paris for several years to join us in the choice of site destinations, operators, terms and conditions of the specifications," added the City of Paris.

This requires a "major consultation" with the Ports of Paris to be "fully associated with the management of its river".

She also reserves the right to bring a civil action in this case, she adds.

Since the end of August, Lafarge-Holcim has been the subject of an investigation by the Paris prosecutor's office for "discharge of harmful substances by legal person", "discharge or abandonment by legal person of harmful substances" and "use of phytosanitary products without respecting the Terms of use".

The French Biodiversity Office (OFB) noted on August 27 a "suspicion of pollution of the Seine by a public works company".

For this suspicion of pollution, Lafarge said he was "victim" at the beginning of September, claiming that the flow in question was the result of "an exceptional accident caused by a malicious act", and was in no way a voluntary act of the company.