Paris newspaper suggests that board of inquiry will point finger at construction company for roof collapse that killed four.

A report on the roof collapse of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport terminal last May could lay responsibility on construction company GTM, a subsidiary of construction group Vinci.

A French newspaper, Le Parisien, revealed that the government-appointed board of inquiry has come to the conclusion that the weak structure of the building offered little resistance to the struts. A similar explanation for the accident, which killed four and injured three people, had been put forward in the preliminary report published last July.

The completed report from the administrative commission, which has been researching the technical causes of the accident, will be delivered on February 15. The company that operates Charles de Gaulles, ADP (Airport of Paris), said that it had not received a copy of the report and declined to comment. Meanwhile the government’s transport ministry said that the publication of conclusions of an inquiry that was not completed yet was “totally premature”.

However airport architect Paul Andreu responded to the article, by blaming the collapse of the roof on the construction. “From the first day, visual observations have shown that the accident had been caused by the structure not being sufficiently strengthened by a steel mesh embedded in the concrete.”

He added that the structure in that case had nothing to do with the ability of the architect, but was the responsibility of the construction companies. Vinci declined to comment on the news.

The transport ministry said that the commission would deliver the document to judicial authorities. However the judicial decisions will not be based directly on that administrative document, as the tribunal of Bobigny, in charge of the inquiry, has appointed three consultants to analyse the conception and the realisation of the building.

If the administrative report confirms the weakness of the steel mesh embedded in the concrete, the terminal might be partially or completely demolished.