I. – The client, the project manager or the owner of buildings by nature or by destination, equipment, materials or articles who decides on an operation involving risks of exposure of workers to asbestos shall have the search for asbestos mentioned in article L. 4412-2 carried out in accordance with the conditions laid down in this paragraph.
These risks, assessed by the person mentioned in the previous paragraph, may in particular result from the fact that the operation concerns buildings, equipment, materials or articles constructed or manufactured before the entry into force of the provisions of decree no. 96-1133 of 24 December 1996 relating to the ban on asbestos, adopted in application of the Labour Code and the Consumer Code, or to which the ban provided for by this decree is not applicable.
II. – The search for asbestos is carried out by a survey prior to the operation, adapted to its nature, its scope and the level of risk it presents.
The conditions under which the asbestos survey is carried out, in particular with regard to technical procedures and methods for analysing materials likely to contain asbestos, are specified by orders of the Minister for Work and, each in their respective areas of responsibility, the Ministers for Health, Construction, Transport and the Sea, for the following areas of activity:
1° Buildings ;
2° Other buildings such as land, civil engineering works and transport infrastructure;
3° Railway rolling stock and other transport rolling stock;
4° Ships, boats, floating equipment and other floating structures;
5° Aircraft;
6° Installations, structures or equipment used to carry out or implement an activity.
III. – The orders mentioned in II specify the conditions under which the traceability and mapping documents available or the asbestos searches carried out in application of the laws and regulations or on the initiative of the interested parties are considered to satisfy the obligation to locate.
IV. – Once a survey has been carried out in accordance with the conditions laid down in this article, subsequent operations carried out within the same perimeter do not give rise to a new survey, except where factual circumstances arising after the survey reveal the need to do so, or where regulations that came into force after the survey were carried out so prescribe.