On 4 September 2006, a court convicted a company making industrial boilers of exposing employees to asbestos - a first in France. The former director of the Alstom Power Boiler site in Lys-les-Lannoy, near the northern town of Roubaix, also was convicted.

The court fined the company €75,000 (US$96,435) - the maximum possible - and sentenced Bernard Gomez, 56, to a nine-month suspended jail term and a fine of €3,000 (US$3,857). It awarded €10,000 (US$12,858) to each of the 150 employees in the case, all civil parties.

It was the first time a French court ruled that a company was responsible for placing employees in danger by exposing them to asbestos.

Source: Associated press