Paris - French oil giant Total and its chief, Thierry Demarest, are to be tried in Toulouse for their responsibility in the 2001 explosion of a chemicals factory that killed 31 people and injured some 2,500, France Info radio reported on Thursday. The judges in the trial acceded to the demands of the plaintiffs to put Total and its CEO on trial for manslaughter, along with the Total subsidiary that owned the factory and the former head of the chemicals company AZF.
Plaintiffs claim that Total bears responsibility for the carelessness that led to the explosion of 296 tons of ammonium nitrate on September 21, 2001, in an AZF warehouse in Toulouse.
The blast was so powerful that it registered 3.4 on the open-ended Richter scale and left more than 70,000 people homeless.
An investigation found that the accident was provoked by the mixing of 250 kilogrammes of ammonium nitrate with another chemical that might have been due to negligence in the storing of the chemicals.
As owner of the factory through its subsidiary, Total has so far paid out nearly 2 billion euros (2.57 billion dollars) in damages, but it has always denied legal responsibility and sought to refute the experts' conclusions.
The trial, which opened on Monday, is expected to last for four months.
