The courts ruled inadmissible on Thursday the request by the parents of 18-year-old Théo Grataloup to link his birth defects to his pregnant mother's exposure to glyphosate, a flagship herbicide produced by German chemical giant Bayer-Monsanto.
"It is of course a disappointment," reacted the Grataloup family in a press release, having launched a civil action against Bayer in 2018, to have the "causal link" between glyphosate and Théo's disability recognized.
But the young man also noted "all the whistleblower work that was done through the media, throughout the different stages of the trial," he told AFP on Thursday. "That's what symbolizes this action for me."
The family's lawyers have indicated their intention to appeal the judgment handed down by the Vienne (Isère) judicial court.
Born with his esophagus and trachea not separating properly, Theo has undergone 55 operations that allow him to eat normally, breathe and speak through a hole in his throat.
His mother, Sabine Grataloup, is convinced that her son's disability originated in August 2006 when she was pregnant and used Glyper, a glyphosate-based generic of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, distributed by the company Novajardin, to weed a riding arena.
– No invoice –
The court ruled the Grataloups' claims "inadmissible" "on the basis of civil liability in tort against the company" Bayer-Monsanto, according to the judgment consulted by AFP.
He believes that Théo's family has not provided sufficient proof that Bayer-Monsanto glyphosate was actually used by Ms Grataloup, in the absence of "an invoice or other documents capable of establishing the purchase of a can of Glyper during the summer of 2005 which could have been used during the summer of 2006".
Although the evidence presented by Théo's parents allows the court to conclude that his mother "used a total glyphosate weedkiller" in the summer of 2006 for her career, it "does not allow us to conclude with the required certainty that this weedkiller was Glyper," the court concluded.
The latter nevertheless acknowledges that Bayer/Monsanto "could be considered as being the producer" of the incriminated product, "a first point scored" for Me Bertrand Repolt, one of the Grataloups' lawyers.
"What was missing were details. The fact of not having the invoice for the product I ordered 19 years ago. What family keeps all the invoices for all the products they order all the time and takes pictures of themselves ordering each product so that they can hypothetically take legal action if something happens?" Sabine Grataloup told AFP.
– “Alert the legislator!” –
"Don't attack the judges (who) make their decisions based on the law," but "alert the legislator to tell them that French law must evolve," she demanded, stressing that the level of proof required "prevents pesticide victims from obtaining justice."
Bayer, which acquired the American company Monsanto in 2018, "takes note of the judgment (...) which found no liability against the group," it said in a statement. "This decision comes after more than seven years of proceedings, in a painful human context, which the company has never ignored," it added.
He also states that glyphosate "is the subject of a scientific consensus validated by the European and French health authorities" and that the product "is not classified as a teratogenic substance, that is to say, likely to cause congenital malformations, nor even toxic for reproduction or development."
The world's best-selling herbicide (800,000 tonnes in 2014), glyphosate was nevertheless classified in 2015 as a "probable carcinogen" by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. It has been banned in France for domestic use since the end of 2018.
Since its acquisition of Monsanto, Bayer's legal and financial troubles have multiplied around the world, particularly in the United States. It has had to pay more than $10 billion in damages in over 100,000 cases related to glyphosate, which the company denies is causing cancer.
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