“We have too many accidents at work in France, we have too many French people dying at work,” declared Prime Minister Gabriel Attal during an interview on Wednesday at 8 p.m. on TF1. “I believe that on average the statistic is two per day,” he added, an unacceptable situation according to him.
At the beginning of March, an accident on the Toulouse metro construction site left one person dead and several injured, reminding us that the phenomenon is very common.
The number of fatal workplace accidents has been increasing for ten years
THE figures published in January 2024 by Health Insurance, report 738 fatal accidents recognized in 2022, or 93 more than in 2021. This actually represents an average of a little more than two per day. Some 57% of these deaths are the result of illness, and more than 13% of road accidents.
The number of overall work accidents (with stoppage and/or incapacity) is, for its part, decreasing, with just under 565,000 accidents, or 6.7% less compared to 2021. “2022 is far below what could be expected”, notes Health Insurance with regard to the return to normality of salaried employment post-Covid19, which recalls that subsequent corrections could be made.
France is a bad student in the EU
Gabriel Attal announced that he planned to “bring together all the partners, social partners, elected officials, parliamentarians so that there is a major initiative taken on this subject”, without giving further details. “We must better prevent workplace accidents and we must improve the quality of life at work, the working conditions of the French, particularly those who have the most difficult jobs,” he added.
In the European Union, France is currently a bad student: according to the latest Eurostat data (the agency responsible for statistical information in the EU) covering 2021, it is 4th among the countries with the most fatal accidents per 100,000 workers, behind Latvia, Lithuania and Malta. And it is first among workplace accidents in terms of incidence rate.