Read the full article by Pippa Neill (The Guardian)
“The factories were just part of the landscape for Hélène Duguy growing up in the heart of an area known as France’s ‘Chemical Valley’.
‘Those factories are visible from my mother’s apartment,’ says Duguy, 34, whose mother still lives in St-Genis-Laval, south of Lyon.
Until recently, her mother did not accept that there might be any danger associated with living in close proximity to chemical factories. ‘She just trusted the municipalities to do their job,’ Duguy says. ‘I think it remained something quite remote for her – she understood there was a problem, but Pfas is invisible, so it’s very hard to understand the reality of it and what it could mean for you.’
It was only after a warning was issued about the safety of homegrown food and locally produced eggs that the scale of the contamination became more tangible. ‘She’s now even considering selling her flat,’ Duguy says. ‘I was with her last weekend and I told her that for me, the contamination she is exposed to continuously is extremely worrying […] Here I feel very close to people who I was raised with, so this makes the issue very relatable, very tangible, and also it makes the fight more concrete.’
Today, as an ambitious young lawyer, Duguy is part of a team taking the companies running the factories to court.”…