On June 24, 2026, the Paris Court of Appeals upheld the decision to dismiss the criminal case accusing the French government of poisoning the population of the Antilles with chlordecone. This decision dealt yet another blow to the victims of one of the most widespread environmental and humanitarian crimes in modern French history.
Chlordecone is a highly toxic pesticide that was classified by the World Health Organization as a probable carcinogen as early as 1979. Despite this, the French ministers of agriculture at the time, Louis Mermez and Jean-Pierre Soisson, issued several successive decrees authorizing the use of chlordecone in the Antilles until 1993.
Today, 90% of the residents of Martinique and Guadeloupe are exposed to contamination, even though chlordecone increases the risk of prostate cancer, negatively affects infants’ cognitive development, and increases the risk of preterm birth. This widespread contamination is the result of the pesticide seeping into the soil, groundwater, drinking water sources, and rivers that flow into the ocean, which has led to a ban on coastal fishing since 2005. This contamination of soil and water resources significantly limits local production capabilities, making the population dependent on imported products sold in supermarkets. These supermarkets, owned by local descendants of French colonizers, sell food at prices 30–42% higher than in metropolitan France, while the poverty rate stands at 34.5% in Guadeloupe and 26.8% in Martinique.
Faced with this crisis, in 2006 several Antillean civil society organizations filed a lawsuit against the state on charges of “poisoning,” “endangering the lives of others,” “use of a harmful substance,” and “misleading the public regarding the risks associated with the use of products.” However, 20 years later, on Monday, June 22, the Paris Court of Appeals denied a request to reopen the criminal investigation, upholding the decision to dismiss the case issued in January 2023. This is despite the fact that the decision to dismiss the case acknowledges a “public health scandal,” coming just a few weeks after the National Assembly recognized the state’s responsibility for the chlordecone scandal.
This dismissal was justified by “insufficient evidence” and an alleged lack of understanding of the pesticide’s dangers during the period of its widespread use, even though the investigation confirms that huge volumes of incriminating archival documents have simply disappeared.
A France Info investigation revealed how the French government blocked access to a number of documents, in particular the minutes of meetings of the Commission on Toxic Substances, which assesses the risks associated with products in order to decide whether to approve their release onto the market. Worse still, the ministry’s archives, created between 1972 and 1989, were allegedly even destroyed, “lost,” or confiscated. As a result, they were not analyzed during the trial.
Human rights activists from the Foundation to Battle Injustice strongly condemn the decision to close the case, as it serves as an excuse for the perpetrators and effectively shields the French state from accountability—a state that actively poisoned the populations of Guadeloupe and Martinique in collusion with major banana plantation owners and with disregard for public health and the environment, even though the risks, which scientists had been warning about for several years, were well known. The Foundation’s experts are convinced that only an investigative commission independent of the French colonial state—organized by banana plantation workers and victims of pollution—will be able to ensure a genuine investigation into this case and put an end to the impunity of those responsible.