Jean-Philippe Olier

Various parties were waiting for the bill of law on preventing technological
risks. The French association of environmental engineers and technicians
closely followed the drafting of this bill, which should help to link
industrialization and urbanization by providing the means for adapting to
the requirements of risk management. Some reactions to the bill present an
overall positive assessment and point to its modernized vision of public
risk management and its bold, innovative measures. They also make
suggestions about, for example, the necessary changes to be made in studying
danger. And they formulate reserves about: preferring a clear, accessible,
global objective to an unlimited general one; switching from a "logic of
means" to a "logic of objectives"; reforming compensation for victims; and
making measures about personnel safety more understandable.
 

Environmental law: Penal risk management in the firm

Bertrand Burg

Growing concern about the environment in French society has recently led to
penalizing infringements of environmental laws when illegal behaviors are
condemned or natural environments are damaged. This penalization of business
potentially threatens all heads of plants, establishments and firms. Setting
aside the case of overtly deviant behavior, the issue is not penal risks but
the consequences of industrial risks in court. These consequences can be
managed in advance if the juristic or natural person being held potentially
liable shows determination and if a transactional solution is sought for.

Michel Charlet interviewed by Vincent 
Jacques Le Seigneur

The internationally famous Chamonix Valley attracts an ever increasing
number of skiers and mountain-climbers. Via the Mont-Blanc tunnel, it also
provides access between France and Italy. With its steep slopes and harsh
climate, this exceptionally beautiful site concentrates natural as well as
human risks (such as avalanches and flooding, on the one hand, and sporting
and road accidents on the other) that turn it into a real-life "risk
laboratory". Michel Charlet, the mayor of this Alpine town for twenty years
now, comments on several problem areas: avalanches, flooding, mountain
rescue operations, management of the international tunnel and the question
of the level relevant for defining a common interest.

Farming versus the environment

Amede Mollard , Vincent Chatellier, Jean-Marie Codron , Pierre Dupraz , &
Florence Jacquet

A case of group consultancy conducted by the French National Institute of
Agricultural Research (INRA) on the relations between farming and the
environment in three major systems of production (large-surface farming,
cattle and fruit) is presented. Following this work, a group of economists
analyzed the results, brought to light the common points and differences in
the socioeconomic aspects of these three systems, and introduced a few
crosscutting factors for analyzing the relations between farming and the
environment. The diagnosis herein is both pessimistic and carefully
balanced. The economic solutions for improving the aforementioned relations
in the framework of existing markets and public farm policies are analyzed.
A debate opens in a context that is changing fast both internationally
(given the expiration, toward 2004, of the WTO clause that has ensured
"agricultural peace") and in the EU (given the new member-states coming from
central Europe).
 

Pereira Magalhaes Jr, Antonio

The uses of indicators for managing the water supply are compared in the two
quite different historical and socioeconomic contexts of Brazil and France.
In Brazil, the recent national system of water supply management needs
decision-making tools since new parties (such as water basin committees and
water agencies) and new managerial instruments have been created.
Paradoxically, the lack of data and information has made indicators even
more useful. In France, the experience acquired by more than thirty years of
water basin management at the central level has improved indicators and uses
of them. This experience can serve as a framework for thinking about the
Brazilian case. Despite differences at various levels between the two
countries, we observe a common "core" of water management priorities. The
current "sustainable development era" seems to put the same goals in
perspective.