A craze for survivalism in France has come under scrutiny following the death of a 26-year old who ate a plant his instructor allegedly insisted was a harmless "wild carrot”.
In fact, it was hemlock water dropwort, perhaps the most poisonous indigenous plant in France and Britain and whose fleshy tubers are known as “dead man’s fingers”.
He went into a coma and died from cardiac arrest.
A former French soldier has been charged with manslaughter over the death, as well as involuntary injury, forgery and illegal possession of weapons.
The fatal incident has cast into question the credentials of would-be experts offering courses on the arts of bushcraft and self-defence in case of a sudden emergency or social and political collapse.
The victim, known only as Ulysse, was part of a group of 12 would-be survivalists on a 72-hour course in Brittany, western France, run by John Malardé, 48, a former member of 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment, whose motto is “Debout les morts" (Rise the dead).
During one exercise in a wood, the group came across the plant whose scientific name is oenanthe crocata. Found in ditches and damp meadows, it is a member of the Umbellifer family, which includes the edible celery, parsley, parsnip, and carrot but also the poisonous hemlock, cowbane and hemlock water dropwort.
Mr Malardé said that the trainee Parisian "prepper" had eaten the plant without his permission, cooked it and given it to the others, eight of whom were later hospitalised.
“When you don’t know, you don’t touch,” he told Ouest France, the regional daily. “Ulysse made the mistake of consuming this plant when I hadn’t authorised him to do so.”
However, another course member claimed to the daily: “John Malardé identified this plant as the edible wild carrot. We cooked it in front of him. We were all very hill, hospitalised. We were all sick and had eyesight problems, paralysis, loss of consciousness. It was violent!.”
Michaël Giraudet, deputy prosecutor of Lorient said there was sufficient evidence to charge Mr Malardé.
“The inquiry has been able to show that he let the interns consume the incriminating plant without verifying that it was harmless, despite the fact that it had been duly presented to him,” he said.
Mr Malardé, born in French Polynesia, is something of a local celebrity and his three-day courses costing €150 (£135) were all full. He also attracted the attention of French TV channels and was planning to start jungle survival courses.
However, the prosecutor’s office claimed that his so-called credentials were “sadly lacking”.
Hemlock water dropwort contains the toxin oenanthotoxin from which botanists say the term “sardonic grin” arises as it causes paralysis and a rictus on those who consume it.
Phoenicians of ancient Sardinia purportedly used it as a way to forcibly “euthanise" the elderly in which they were intoxicated with the herb and then dropped from a high rock or beaten to death.
There are reportedly up to 150,000 survivalists, or "preppers" in France, due to host a third “survival expo” in Paris next March.
The country has also seen rocketing interest in "collapsology", which assumes that climate change, declining resources and the extinction of species is driving the world to its destruction at an alarming rate.
Unlike survivalists, who want to run for the hills, collapsologists say their aim is to help each other to improve group resilience.
August 17, 2020 at 11:46PM
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French survivalism in the dock as instructor charged over 'wild carrot' death - Telegraph.co.uk
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