The government is launching a campaign to prevent serious and fatal workplace accidents on Monday, announced the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, who wishes to provoke a “electroshock” in public opinion.
It is not “unbearable that in 2023 we can still die at work due to negligence, or lack of prevention”declared Mr. Dussopt at a press conference, stressing that many of these tragedies “could have been avoided”.
The scourge of work accidents still kills two people per day in France each year, according to figures recalled by the minister, who mentions “a form of floor that we cannot cross with around 700 deaths per year”for over 15 years.
Available on television, radio, social networks and in the press, the campaign has the slogan “Corporate responsibility, vigilance of all”. It intends to contribute to creating a “culture of prevention and risk reduction”.
Certain types of profiles are overexposed to the risk of fatal accidents at work, like new hires, temporary workers and seconded workers.
From where “the importance of welcome” future employees and “training actions” put in place by the professional branches, insisted Mr. Dussopt.
Faced with more frequent heatwave episodes, the minister evokes a “new difficulty” and announces the implementation of regular and reinforced prevention actions.
In 2021, there were still 640,000 work accidents, including 39,000 serious and 696 fatal, according to figures from Health Insurance and the MSA.
A poor performer at the level of the European Union, France comes 4th among the countries most affected by this scourge, behind Latvia, Lithuania and Malta, according to Eurostat data for the year 2021.
However, this classification should be put into perspective according to Mr. Dussopt, who calls for work to harmonize indicators so that “these comparisons are as fair as possible”.