Using simply drinking tap water? “It is estimated that 600,000 people (according to the Institute for the health monitoring in 2010) could be exhibited in France at the monomer vinyl chloride (CVM) while only a few thousands are actually informed by the Regional Health Agency or their distributor of Water ”, advances Maître Gabrielle Gien, lawyer specializing in environmental law. She helped launch a platform on January 16, 2025 to collect appeals from individuals concerned.
The CVM is a classified carcinogenic gas by the International Center for Research on Cancer (CIR) since 1987 and from the degradation of PVC pipes. The latter were prohibited in 1978, but the already laid pipes have remained in place. And, it was not until 2011 that the first campaign on CVM surveillance begins in France, while the regulatory threshold was set by the European Union at 0.5µg/L in 1998.
Legal remedies for “faulty negligence”
First problem: the magnitude of water pollution to the CVM is not precisely known since no precise cartography makes it possible to assess the exhibitions. Many regions are concerned like New Aquitaine, Normandy, Pays-de-la-Loire but many data also lacks in Ile-de-France and Occitanie, reports Gaspard Lemaire, doctoral student in political science at the Earth Chair From the University of Angers and a teacher in environmental law to Sciences Po.
He is the author of a CVM study, published on January 16, 2025, which denounces the lack of follow -up on the facilities and “a generalized laxity on the health risks incurred by citizens”. It reigns a widespread opacity on data from CVM levels in drinking water and when communicated, they remain fragmented.
Requested by 20 Minutesthe Ministry of Health remains vague on this point, attesting only that “measuring campaigns, carried out in addition to regulatory health control, have been programmed by the ARS, in areas identified as being potentially concerned by the presence of CVM in water ”.
In fact, this is not enough to reassure the inhabitants, who discover overruns by requesting an analysis themselves. About twenty appeal files were filed by individuals, via the platform launched by Me Gabrielle Gien to “conduct actions against water suppliers if they have been informed of non-compliance and have not warned the population in time. And, against the Ministry of Health for faulty neglect, omitting to control the CVM level. »»
Small municipalities more concerned
It is on the advice of the Citizen Committee Association, created in Sarthe by exposed inhabitants, that in May 2023, analyzes are carried out in the tap of the cuisine of Jacqueline Gille, 80-year-old, living in Saint-Saint Georges-de-la-Couée, in Sarthe. She had not been informed of the likely toxicity of her water neither the health authorities nor by the water manager. The results show 0.82µg/L of monomer vinyl chloride (CVM), when the regulatory threshold fixed by the EU is 0.50 µg/L and that of the World Health Organization (WHO) of 0, 30 µg/l.
New analyzes are carried out in July 2023 after automatic purges carried out at night, in this village of 171 inhabitants, and the rate then led to 0.15µg/l. “There has not been really follow -up since that date,” launches the octogenarian who has no guarantee that the purges are effective. It’s not really a solution to put the water in the gutter. And unfortunately, I am in the countryside then by the fact that the pipes are changed … “
On a daily basis, it has therefore set up a somewhat tedious process: “I leave tap water settling for several hours in bottles of wide neck juice so that the gas evaporates, says the octogenarian who does not is not seen carrying mineral water packs. But, until 2023, I drank it as it is. She is supported by the mayor of his village but he cannot obtain aid from communities.
“There are objective difficulties in small municipalities, without engineers, because they do not know what they have under their feet,” points out Gaspard Lemaire. According to Fick’s physical law, the quantity of CVM that we will find in water back in contact with contaminated pipes depends on several variables: the diameter of the pipe, its age, the water temperature and the contact time between water and contaminated pipe. “We know that the more water is in contact with PVC and the more CVM is in charge. However at the end of the network, there is less demand, it circulates less and it permeates more. Some pipes transporting drinking water are also in PVC in urban areas but there is less risk because water circulates much more.
What dangerousness proven?
Do proven links exist between exposure to CVM and liver cancers? “In the feasibility study of the Ministry of Health dated 2017, it can be read that” the collection of data surely failed in active research “,” turns Gaspard Lemaire. In other words, when you don’t look, you can’t find it. And if there has been no diligent epidemiological study, the researcher notes “empirical evidence with toxicological studies on animals which have digestive systems close to ours and which develop cancers”.
It is based on a report of the National Aage for Food, Environment and Labor Safety and Work (ANSES) dated December 2011 where we can read: “Although no study is Available for the oral route to demonstrate the carcinogenic character of vinyl chloride in humans, inhalation and ingestion studies available in animals and proof of the good absorption of vinyl chloride by ingestion in animals comfort The conclusion that vinyl chloride is also carcinogenic by ingestion for humans. »»
Gaspard Lemaire adds that if there are only a few cases identified on the liver angiosarcoma it is because “the symptoms are very generic and that these are dazzling cancers”. The Ministry of Health is entrenched behind a feasibility study of the location of cases of liver angiosarcoma in France, published in 2017. “Because of the low number of cases identified, the scope of information from the search for Environmental exhibitions from the ingestion of tap water is limited. »»
Insufficient water analyzes
Since 2020, water managers have been responsible for CVM analyzes, but under ARS supervision. Gaspard Lemaire points out that in Dordogne, one of the strongly affected departments, there are 39 cases of overruns on the public database available online while from the information obtained from the ARS, he counted 986 , or twenty-five times more.
“Note, France goes further than European regulations by directly measuring CVM in water, while European regulations only plan to estimate by calculation the theoretical presence of CVM in water, without measure, is defend with 20 Minutesthe Directorate General of Health. In 2023 and 2024, nearly 66,000 analyzes were carried out in the context of sanitary control with a compliance rate of more than 98 % compared to the European quality limit fixed at 0.50 µg/l. »»
To carry out his study, Gaspard Lemaire had to enter the CADA in most cases, the Access Commission for Administrative Documents before the absence of return of the ARS, “even if some have played the game”. And the Ministry of Health seems to be fully relying on water managers: “In the event of confirmed excess of the quality limit (0.50 μg/l), (…) the consumers concerned are alerted by the manager of the distribution of water and informed of the instructions for restriction of uses to be respected. »»
“This makes two managers of water services that we meet, who tell us that they were hired in 2023 and that before them, there was no results of analyzes,” said Catherine Hergoualc’h, president of the Citizen Committee Association. “We only see the tip of the iceberg,” she adds. I realized it because my own analyzes (carried out at home) were not found in the public database. »»
The abundance of water unions, 45 for the Sarthe alone for example, with various means, complicates the harmonization of the CVM monitoring policy.
A significant cost to change the pipes
“Appeals engage in the responsibility of persons responsible for the quality of the waters, and it is also a question of claiming damages for exposure to a carcinogenic gas,” specifies Maître Gabrielle Gien because these inhabitants have exposed their children without knowing it And paid royalties to their supplier when the water was not drinkable. By accumulation of appeals, hope is to obtain replacement work for the pipes concerned.
Indeed, the purges can only be a temporary solution to lower the CVM content in the water. But the evaluations oscillate between 50,000 to 340,000 km of conduct concerned, reports Gaspard Lemaire. However, “the change of one kilometer of pipe can cost up to several hundred thousand euros, depending on the configuration of the premises”, estimates the Ministry of Health which promises financial support “to communities that would not be able to make the necessary investments ”.
Our file on drinking water
The insufficient data complicates the encrypted assessment but “it should be noted that according to the Fick law, when the water circulates a lot, there is no need to change the pipe,” says Gaspard Lemaire.
Since the publication of its study, on January 16, the Ministry of Health has not officially reacted to the problem of the CVM in France. “Hundreds of thousands of people drink water that gives cancer and nothing happens,” deplores the researcher.
(Tagstotranslate) News