Ensuring Safety on the Grand Paris Express: Examining Accidents and Measures Implemented

On the Grand Paris Express, often considered the project of the century, the figure slaps, like a particularly painful slap that marks a long time: 5. Five people have lost their lives on this pharaonic site, since the start of civil engineering work in 2016. These accidents all occurred in less than three years, between March 2020 and April 2023. The same fear also grips with each serious accident, as when a 46-year-old worker was hit by a a telescopic trolley in Aulnay-sous-Bois, in the line 16 tunnel, on July 3, 2023. His vital prognosis was engaged.

Almost every time, after the dramas on the Grand Paris Express in any case, safety is singled out. In Le Parisien of July 5, 2023, one could read: “this new accident questions. (…) ‘We need more control and surveillance. There is a problem of management and safety'”, estimated Jean-Pascal François, the general secretary of the CGT construction, going so far as to consider that companies do not take sufficient account of “human life”. Often also, the unions, like the CGT 93, were able to question “the subcontracting in cascade, the massive recourse to temporary workers” and “the cadences imposed to respect the deadlines”. However, “let’s be clear: we never put pressure on companies on deadlines to the detriment of security. Conversely, we have reviewed the contractual deadlines in the summer of 2021 to adapt. There is no delay, we are in line with our schedule”, defends Bernard Cathelain, member of the management board of the SGP, project owner and therefore client. This does not mean that no pressure is exerted, on the construction site itself, to carry out tasks more quickly”. A situation which he nevertheless considers “inadmissible! If pressure on deadlines were to exist, the solution would be to strengthen the teams on site, certainly not to cut corners on security”.

Multiple issues around a sensitive subject

Faced with its dramas and the debates they arouse, Batiactu wanted to know more. The editorial staff questioned the reality of serious and fatal accidents on these major projects, the specificity of these sites, the prevention and safety systems put in place, their effectiveness, the over-representation of certain categories of workers in these accidents, the level of responsibility of each.

We contacted project owners, companies, trade unions, government services, professional bodies and organizations, safety craftsmen on construction sites and a lawyer to try to better understand the issues and the solutions in place or envisaged. The subject is sensitive, as much as the stakes are high for these sites, these operators, and these companies which want to be exemplary and know that they are scrutinized.

To continue setting the framework after the publication of an infographic on work accidents in the construction industry, we begin by asking a series of five questions in this first article: what and who are we talking about? How is safety organized on these major worksites? What specific measures have been devised? How is their application monitored? For what results? Before we look, in the coming days, on even more specific subjects.

WHAT AND WHO ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

The major construction sites we are talking about are public initiative projects, “exceptional in terms of their size and their technical complexity.

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