http://www.boston.com/dailynews/356/world/French_prime_minister_says_inv:.shtml

French prime minister says investigation into Toulouse plant explosion will take months

By Jamey Keaten, Associated Press, 12/22/2001 00:16

PARIS (AP) Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said investigators need several months more to determine whether an explosion at a chemical plant in southern France that killed 30 people three months ago was accidental or deliberate.

Writing in Saturday's edition of the Depeche du Midi newspaper, Jospin said three separate investigations into the Sept. 21 blast at the AZF plant near Toulouse were far from complete.

''Several investigations are running their course: judicial, administrative and within the company,'' Jospin wrote. ''We know the process will take several more months.''

Chemical production in an industrial zone near the AZF plant was halted after the blast, which also injured hundreds and damaged scores of buildings, including schools, hospitals and homes.

Jospin said he isn't ready to allow chemical manufacturing to start again in the area.

His Socialist government faces the task of balancing the interests of more than 4,000 people whose jobs are linked to the region's chemical industry and those of activists calling for tight controls of potentially hazardous industrial sites near cities.

The issue is especially thorny for the prime minister with presidential elections looming next year. Jospin has said he is a ''probable'' candidate.

''The inclination of the government is not to ban the chemical industry from Toulouse, but to convert the chemical-producing area to safer activities that cannot endanger the population,'' he said in the article.

President Jacques Chirac, who is widely expected to face off against Jospin in spring presidential elections, has said chemical plants should be moved away from Toulouse's downtown area.

The explosion took place in a silo containing 300 tons of ammonium nitrate, a chemical made produced at the plant that can be used in fertilizer and explosives.

-- Anonymous, December 22, 2001