Marseille (France) (AFP) – Thirty months in prison with a warrant of committal and a fine of 200,000 euros were requested, Monday in Marseille, against a professional who illegally exploited, in 2021 and 2022, two wild landfills, one of which was located in a protected wooded natural area.
Published on: 02/11/2026 - 19:07
Observing "a shift from delinquency to waste", prosecutor Michel Sastre estimated that Mickael Mira, 36, had set up "a model of delinquent exploitation": "imprisonment is part of his business plan because it brings in a lot, a lot of money".
In the waste sector for 17 years, Mr. Mira, whose criminal record includes 14 convictions, appeared detained following a one-year prison sentence handed down in April for a fire that started from his landfill located in the Valdonne artisanal zone in Peypin (Bouches-du-Rhône).
According to the authorities, he had, without any authorization and without respecting the rules in force, stored on 1.75 hectares more than 43,000 m3 of waste from construction sites collected from major economic operators and even institutional ones.
Denouncing "unfair competition", the prosecutor observed that it "can be the cheapest on the market because the treatment is zero".
To store up to saturation and process mountains of waste, he carried out, without authorization, major work to raise the ground up to ten meters high and cleared a forest area.
“If I cut down ten trees, it’s the end of the world, I didn’t clear everything,” he defended, also contesting the “excessive” assessment of the volume of illegally stored waste.
Opposing minimum recognitions on the 17 offenses with which he is accused, he denounced "relentlessness": "I am not a saint, but neither a criminal".
In Marseille, his company Eco bennes, managed by his partner due to a ban on managing the strike, operated a second illegal landfill, in the middle of a residential area.
The lawyer for the Environment and Energy Management Agency (Ademe) recalled that this "armed arm of the State, cleaner of the environment when the private sector fails", spent nearly 1.2 million euros to treat the 8,000 tonnes of waste including dangerous materials removed from the Marseille landfill.
“Beneath the rubble, the soil is dead and it will take decades for the Mediterranean forest to one day regain its rights,” argued Mr. Romain Dinparast, lawyer for the town of Peypin, who claimed nearly 1.9 million euros in damages to be allocated to repairing the environment.
The judgment will be rendered on December 1.
© 2026 AFP
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