The tragedy occurred this Thursday morning in Gonesse. The 22-year-old victim worked on the construction site for metro line 17. This is the fifth fatal accident on a Grand Paris Express site.
A 22-year-old worker died Thursday morning in Gonesse in Val-d’Oise. The young man born in Mali was “victim of a falling concrete block“, while working on the construction site of line 17 of the metro, said the firefighters of the department.
The deceased, a companion, worked for the Avenir group of companies led by Demathieu Bard Construction, confirms the Société du Grand Paris Express in a press release published today. “During an earthmoving operation, the companion was fatally injured by a falling concrete slab. Investigations are underway to determine the circumstances of this tragic accident. continues the SGP.
“Safety is our top priority. This new drama leads us to note that this priority is not sufficiently integrated by all of the stakeholders on our worksites. We must change the safety culture there without delay“, said Jean-François Monteils, chairman of the management board of the Grand Paris company.
“We are naturally at the disposal of the public authorities to provide our assistance” in the investigation, said in a press release the Avenir group, offering its condolences to the relatives of the victim.
For his part, Jean-Pascal François, administrator of CGT Construction, denounced the working conditions on the sites of the Grand Paris Express: “From the moment there are construction sites under time constraints and several trades, we have an accumulation of fatal accidents”, he added. “It is high time that the project manager, the SGP, take its responsibilities and be more restrictive for working conditions and safety“.
A medico-psychological cell was set up by the Samu for the members of staff present on site at the time of the accident.
An investigation, opened to find the causes of death, has been entrusted to the Gonesse police station, a police source told AFP. The technical service of the national police was dispatched to the scene. The site will remain closed until Tuesday.
This death brings to five the number of victims of fatal work accidents on the Grand Paris Express site since 2020.
In February 2020, the first worker died in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne) following an accident on the extension of line 14 of the Paris metro, work integrated into the vast Grand Paris Express project.
Three other deaths recorded on this major construction site around the capital took place on the extension of line 16, in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis.
In December 2020, a 41-year-old worker died in La Courneuve after falling into a grinding tank, 30 meters deep. Then a fall of equipment killed in January 2022 a worker employed by Eiffage on the site of the Saint-Denis-Pleyel station. Very recently, at the beginning of March 2023, another tragedy occurred on the site of the Blanc-Mesnil station: the victim, employed by a transport company, had been hit by a heavy load during a handling operation.
The 200 kilometers of the Grand Paris Express include four new automatic metro lines, numbered 15 to 18, as well as extensions of line 14. Built around a circular line, several branches will link the airports of Orly and Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, the scientific center of Saclay and the popular districts of Seine-Saint-Denis which are currently poorly served. The new lines are scheduled to enter service between 2025 and 2030.
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