The Mobilization of Collective Actors Around the Stake of Environmental Health

Various sanitary crises (such as asbestos, contaminated blood, madcow disease/BSE, etc.), industrial accidents (Tchernobyl, Seveso, Bhopal, etc.), and the rapid development of new technologies (biotechnologies, nanotechnologies, electromagnetic fields…) induced a growing public concern on the links between environment and health. This global environmental and biophysical change resulting from the transboundary proliferation of pollutions and the subsequent contamination of air, soils, water or food with disseminated toxic substances is suspected to cause a significant increase in the prevalence of environmental diseases: such as cancers, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases, allergies, endocrine disruption, loss of fertility, obesity, antibiotic resistance, etc. Individual and collective actions around these issues are growing in France to promote public awareness and debate on environmental health issues. Through the recent creation of a number of dedicated NGOs (doctors, women, students) and the reconfiguration of traditional movements (environmentalists, consumers, patients, families) by setting up a network, these actors endeavour to influence policy-makers and gain the attention of the public. The case study of this emerging social movement for the stake of environmental health will focus on the strategies of these new actors, their interactions, and the new repertoires of action they develop, showing their social and technical innovative capacities, to resist a model of society with endangers human’s health.