French court recognises former Air France stewardess’s breast cancer as work-related
A court in France has accepted that years of flying, night shifts and smoke exposure contributed to a former Air France attendant’s illness.
A French court has ruled that the breast cancer of former Air France flight attendant Sophie Lainault should be treated as an occupational disease, according to reports from BBC News and The Guardian. The decision was issued in France on Wednesday and is being described by her lawyer and a union as the first such ruling in the country’s aviation sector.
Lainault’s case centred on more than 12,600 hours spent on flights during her career, along with repeated night work and exposure to secondhand smoke, the reports said. Her legal team argued that those conditions were linked to her illness.
The ruling could open the door to similar claims from other aviation workers, according to her lawyer and the CFDT union. Air France was not quoted in the reports.
Breast cancer has previously been recognised in some countries as an occupational illness in limited circumstances, but the French decision adds to a small body of rulings connecting long-term workplace exposure and disease in the airline industry.
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