WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #334 - Yara Montoir: The fertilizer factory must close (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Between Donges and Saint-Nazaire, the north bank of the Loire estuary is

a vast industrial-port area which has 9 Seveso sites. Among these, the
Yara factory particularly worries local populations with its repeated
violations in terms of pollution and safety, but it benefits from real
impunity on the part of the authorities. ---- Yara, in Montoir, produces
industrial fertilizers, ammonitrates, on an increasingly dilapidated
site. It has been regularly singled out for twenty years by the
prefecture's inspection services for its discharges into water (nitrogen
and phosphorus) as well as into the air (fine particles), its sulfuric
acid leaks (still 13 t in July last) and its security deficiencies.

This factory belongs to the Norwegian chemical group Yara international
SA, a major multinational in the global agro-industry. Its turnover is
calculated in tens of billions of euros, for a profit of 2.7 billion in
2022. Since its creation in 2004 by the autonomy of the fertilizer
branch of the Norsk Hydro group, the Yara group has developed on 5
continents. He is involved in multiple corruption cases in Libya, India
and Russia, and accused since 2021 of being an active supporter of the
Belarusian dictatorship. The firm is very agitated with European
authorities: 12 million euros spent between 2010 and 2019 on lobbying,
to avoid any restrictive regulation of its environmental impact.

However, in Montoir, the industrialist refuses the investment of a few
tens of millions of euros to bring its industrial and rainwater
discharges into compliance, install a fine particle filtration system,
protect its room from fire risks security control. The factory was
placed on "reinforced vigilance" by the State in 2021, and it suffered
financial penalties for failure to comply. But it is more profitable for
shareholders to take fines of a few hundred thousand euros per year,
most of which are not paid.
Cynicism of capitalism, which in its benefit-risk calculation prefers to
destroy the environment and endanger the health of its employees and
local residents, rather than respecting the standards in force.

Complacency of administrative and political authorities, who give in to
the balance of power of employment blackmail and economic recession, and
in fact support destructive industrial agriculture under the pretext of
feeding the planet.
Weight of the economy, which means that Yara benefits from the support
of all agro-industrial lobbies, first and foremost the FNSEA, but also
the Grand Autonomous Port of Nantes-Saint-Nazaire. And as a consequence
of some of the industry and port unions, who always consider that their
interests are the same as those of their bosses, while some of them
claim to be part of the class struggle!

The 1,200 t of ammonium nitrate produced per day by Yara Montoir, and
stored up to 112,000 t on the site, are a real time bomb. "Only" 400 t
of this product were enough for the AZF Toulouse disaster in 2001 (30
deaths, 2,000 injured), and less than 3,000 t were at the origin of that
of Beirut in 2020 (more than 200 deaths and a ravaged city). The factory
is located between the Total-energie refinery and the Engie LNG
terminal, the consequences of the domino effect would be immeasurable.

This situation dates back several years, and already in October 2022,
local residents' associations had organized a rally to denounce it,
demand action from state services and reactions from local
authorities... But since then, nothing! Today, a group of associations
is leading a campaign for the administrative suspension of this factory
until it is brought up to standard. In one month, a press conference,
petition, public meetings, film debate and demonstration made it
possible to break through the media's heavy cover and raise awareness at
the national level of a problem that is largely ignored by the local
population. The demonstration in Saint-Nazaire brought together 400 to
500 people on October 14; the petition has collected nearly 2,000
signatures to date, and the next deadline will be its submission to the
authorities, but we must increase the balance of power to hope to win.

Mobilization poster for the 2023 campaign

On June 11, 2023, it was in Saint-Colomban, south of Nantes, that the
population demonstrated against the extension of sand quarries for the
benefit of the concrete lobby and market gardeners. On October 14,
another demonstration in Loire-Atlantique attacked productivist
agriculture by contesting the project of a so-called XXL methanizer in
Corcoué-sur-Logne. On October 18, in Saint-Nazaire again, the community
of communes organized a meeting on health in the urban area which
established that excess cancer mortality among men under 65 had further
increased compared to 2019[1].

In Brittany, the Splann information platform, specializing in
agro-industrial issues[2], showed in its survey "Bretagne bol d'air à
l'ammoniac" how the fertilizer group Roullier (French competitor of
Yara) poisons the atmosphere of Saint-Malo - where, strangely, we also
encounter excess cancer mortality rates. On October 21, it was the
Radio-France investigation platform which revealed how in Gabès,
Tunisia, this same Roullier group (47th largest French fortune in 2023),
a large consumer of phosphate, is at the origin of a pollution of the
coast and intoxication of the population[3]...

These few facts show to what extent the questions raised by the
collective of Nazairian associations in its fight against Yara go far
beyond a local struggle. The balance of power against the deadly
capitalist development model must intensify by becoming politicized.

For now, the associations' struggle is fundamentally reformist: they are
asking the State to take its responsibilities and ensure the protection
of populations. In activist circles, no one is fooled and no one is
unaware that the State will not do it, apart from a few left-wing
activists (Greens, LFI) who continue to claim that, if they were
entrusted with the management of affairs, they would would be otherwise.
The next step will therefore have to take a step in terms of
politicization, and relentlessly assert that we will be heading into the
wall as long as we do not take our affairs in hand. Communism or
cataclysm, so to speak.

OCL Saint-Nazaire
October 24, 2023

Notes
1) On these different points, see your collection of Alternating
current: Anaerobic digestion and Corcoué-sur-Loire, CA 317, February
2022 ; Sablière and Saint-Colomban, CA 312, summer 2021; Cancers in
Saint-Nazaire, CA 304, November 2020.
2) Splann is, among other things, known for having accompanied the
release of the film Les Algues vertes, whose protagonist, Inès Léraud,
is a founding member of the association. See, on splann.org, "Brittany:
a breath of fresh air with ammonia".
3) "Behind the fertilizers in France, a sacrificed city in Tunisia", by
Elodie Gueguen.

P.-S.
Contact for the campaign for the administrative suspension of the Yara
factory: http://www.aedzrp.com/ or aedzrp44@gmail.com

NB: After the death at the end of October of a worker from a
subcontracting company involved in maintenance operations, for reasons
that were unexplained at this time, the news came on November 6: rather
than complying with YARA standards, the company announced cessation of
production at Montoir and the transformation of the site into a
logistics depot for imports and exports of fertilizers produced
elsewhere..... Which a priori will not change anything in the problem or
in the Seveso classification of the site, except is layoffs and a social
plan... A more complete update will be made in the December CA

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3979
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