Homicide probe into pesticides in French vineyards

James-Bernard Murat died in 2012. He had sprayed his crops with three pesticides containing sodium arsenite, now banned as a carcinogen. Photo / Thinkstock

A French court has begun an inquiry into the "involuntary homicide" of a Bordeaux viticulturist who died of lung cancer after using a toxic pesticide on his grapes for 40 years.

James-Bernard Murat died in 2012. He had sprayed his crops with three pesticides containing sodium arsenite, now banned as a carcinogen.

His cancer was officially confirmed to be "linked to his profession" in 2011, but this is the first time a criminal investigation has been held to seek those responsible for "involuntary homicide, fraud and failure to offer aid".

Lawyers for his daughter, Valerie, said it could open the door to hundreds of other cases against pesticide producers and possibly the French state.

She filed a legal complaint in April, saying she wanted to break the "law of silence" over the ill-effects of pesticides in French vineyards.

The preliminary criminal inquiry was begun in June.

According to Murat, her father used sodium arsenite for 42 years, from 1958 to 2000, to prevent esca, a disease that affects the trunks of mature grapevines, despite the fact that the spray's harmfulness has been "officially recognised since 1955".

Her lawyer, Francois Lafforgue, said: "This is about recognising that the labels on the incriminating products didn't indicate the serious effects of inhaling them and the need to wear a mask."

As well as the pesticide producers, he accused the state of "guilty complacency regarding industrial groups, whose disinformation was systematic".

In February, a French court found Monsanto, the US biotech company, guilty of poisoning Paul Francois, a grain farmer who suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling the Lasso weedkiller in 2004.

The difference, said Murat, was that Francois' disease was due to "an accident, whereas my father's death was due to the chronic use of grape pesticides" over 40 years.