The criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation definitively validated on Wednesday the dismissal of the case concerning asbestos on the Parisian campus of Jussieu, rejecting an appeal by civil parties.
The highest judicial court considered that in this case triggered by complaints in 1996, the criminal liability of the public university establishments Sorbonne-Université and Paris-Cité, respective heirs of the universities Paris VI and Paris VII which were housed in the Jussieu campus, could not be retained for legal reasons.
The investigation, which began in 1996, targeted the university and several of its former officials. Paris VI and Paris VII were formally charged in January 2005.
But the judicial investigation concluded with a dismissal in February 2022. In their February 2022 order, three investigating magistrates from the public health division of Paris considered that there was insufficient evidence to bring anyone before a court for injuries, manslaughter or endangering the lives of others.
On appeal, in July 2023, the judges considered the public action to be extinguished, due to changes in the legal structure of the universities.
Of all the investigations into this health scandal, the one on Jussieu is one of the most emblematic: it was from this Parisian faculty that the first major mobilization denouncing poisoning by asbestos used for the construction of buildings began in the 1970s.
But after more than two decades of investigations, the twenty or so asbestos cases investigated in Paris have been ending for several years without being referred to a court.
In the wake of these setbacks in criminal court, asbestos victims filed a direct summons in November 2021 with the Paris Judicial Court, in order to bring 14 people to trial, notably for manslaughter and involuntary injury and complicity in aggravated deception.
But the Paris court declared their request inadmissible in mid-May 2023.
In 2012, health authorities estimated that asbestos, the use of which has been banned in France since 1997, could cause 3,000 deaths each year by 2025 from pleural or bronchopulmonary cancers.
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