The Saint-Étienne court admitted the complainant’s electrosensitivity, on medical advice. The distributor announces its intention to appeal.
By Erwan Seznec
© DAMIEN MEYER / AFP
Published on
– Modified
Joseph C., a resident of Saint-André-le-Puy, in the Loire, saw his home equipped with a Linky communicating meter on January 13, 2020. He immediately complained of headaches and tinnitus. As of January 17, 2020, a doctor draws up a medical certificate for him, which he sends to Enedis.
Faithful to a constant line since the beginning of the deployment of Linky, the operator refuses to remove the smart meter. 1er December, the court of Saint-Étienne examines the case in summary proceedings. The decision fell on January 5, 2023. It proves Enedis wrong. “The disabling impact on the social life of Mr. Joseph C. and the health risk noted medically characterize an imminent damage to his health and justify granting the request”, write the magistrates. The Linky meter must be replaced by a non-communicating meter within two months, subject to a penalty of 200 euros per day of delay.
Contacted by Point, the distributor indicates that it will appeal. He has already won his case in similar cases at first instance, but also before the courts of appeal of Nanterre, Paris, Versailles, Toulouse, Rennes, Aix-en-Provence and Orléans. “The decision of the court of Saint-Étienne is isolated in the case law”, specifies Enedis. Isolated, yes. Single, no. In November 2020, the Bordeaux Court of Appeal ordered Enedis to install anti-electromagnetic field filters on the counters of thirteen people declaring themselves to be electrohypersensitive (EHS). Enedis did not go to cassation.
What exactly could these filters be used for? Mystery. As the National Health Security Agency (ANSES) recalled in a 2018 opinion, if “the pain and suffering expressed by people declaring themselves EHS correspond to a lived reality”, “no solid experimental evidence currently allows us to establishing a causal link between exposure to electromagnetic fields and the symptoms described”.
Real suffering, with no proven link to the waves
Thousands of studies have been devoted to electrosensitivity over the past twenty-five years. Beyond differences on points of detail, a consensus emerged on the essentials. Placed in conditions to exclude a nocebo effect (very real), self-diagnosed electrosensitives do not react to very weak electromagnetic fields such as those generated by the Linky meter.
The medical opinions produced by the plaintiff in support of his claim do not state that he is electrosensitive. A GP consulted in February 2020 “explains that he searched, in vain, for another pathological condition to explain the symptoms experienced by Mr. Joseph C.”, nothing more.
In another medical certificate drawn up on March 29, 2022, Professor F., from the Saint-Étienne university hospital center, limits himself to noting that the patient “presents symptoms which may be part of a syndrome of electromagnetic hypersensitivity or idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed electromagnetic fields”. Idiopathic environmental intolerance: in other words, a set of non-specific symptoms (migraine, dizziness, nausea) attributed to an unknown external factor, in the absence of an identified pathology.
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Professor F. knows the subject of electrosensitivity well. He contributed to ANSES’s opinion on 5G in February 2022. This opinion concluded, once again, that there was no risk for the general public, at normal levels of exposure to the fields generated by 5G, relay antennas included.
Linky, emissions comparable to those of an induction hob
The Linky meter is much less powerful than an antenna. As Enedis reminds us before the Saint-Étienne court, it emits an electromagnetic field “of the same order as household electrical equipment” such as chargers, power supplies. It even emits less than an induction hob, pointed out in 2016 the National Frequency Agency. According to the ANFR, even by combining the various possible sources of radio waves, public exposure remains well below the regulatory limit values.
So many arguments without taking on the many collectives and associations at war against “electromagnetic smog”. In recent months, their positions have rather tended to harden, with some going so far as to accuse 5G of favoring Covid by weakening the immune system. Four people were indicted in Toulouse last November. Antivax, they admitted having participated in the destruction of a relay antenna…