French Parliament Passes Bill Acknowledging Partial State Responsibility for Chlordecone Contamination in Caribbean Territories

French lawmakers in the lower house voted unanimously on June 3 in favor of a bill that acknowledges the state's share of responsibility for health-related, moral, environmental and economic harm caused by chlordecone in Guadeloupe and Martinique. The bill states that the state acknowledges its share of responsibility for the harm suffered by the territories and their populations as a result of the pesticide's prolonged use.

The Sénat has already backed the bill.

The new law sets France the goal of decontaminating soil and water polluted by the pesticide and aims at compensating all victims of this contamination in Guadeloupe and Martinique. Chlordecone was widely used to eliminate weevils in banana plantations in Guadeloupe and Martinique from 1972 until 1993.

France banned the use of chlordecone on the mainland in 1990 but allowed continued use on the Caribbean islands until 1993.

Almost 90% of people in Martinique and Guadeloupe have been contaminated with chlordecone, according to research cited by France's ANSES health agency. Over 90% of adults in Martinique and Guadeloupe are contaminated by chlordecone. Chlordecone has been linked to prostate cancer.

The rate of prostate cancer in Martinique and Guadeloupe is among the highest in the world. Studies have shown adverse effects of chlordecone on the nervous system, reproduction, the hormonal system and the functioning of certain organs including the heart, according to ANSES.

A 1979 report from the World Health Organization found that chlordecone was carcinogenic in mice and rats. The same report stated it was reasonable to regard chlordecone as a carcinogenic risk to humans. In 2009, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants banned chlordecone use worldwide.

Martinique official Serge Letchimy hailed the vote. He said the vote had come to shatter a system that tramples on the truth, absolves the guilty, and scorns the victims. Elie Califer, the Socialist lawmaker from Guadeloupe who put forward the bill, said this compromise text will help restore deeply damaged trust.

Lawmaker Olivier Serva, also from Guadeloupe, said he was not entirely satisfied but noted that the state initially did not even want to acknowledge its partial responsibility. The Paris appeal court will later this month decide whether or not to reopen a criminal investigation into the scandal, after Paris magistrates dropped it more than three years ago, saying too much time had passed to secure convictions.

Tuesday's vote came after the lower house, last week, backed repealing outdated slavery legislation that was never annulled, despite the practice having been abolished in 1848.

Ships departing from French ports between the 17th and 19th centuries forcibly transported more than one million men, women and children from Africa into slavery, many in plantations in its Caribbean colonies, according to expert estimates.