Hélène Duguy is taking on companies accused of failing to stop Pfas pollution in the area of France she calls home

The factories were just part of the landscape for Hélène Duguy growing up in the heart of an area known as France’s “Chemical Valley”.

“Those factories are visible from my mother’s apartment,” says Duguy, 34, whose mother still lives in St-Genis-Laval, south of Lyon.