causes premières

22:06 May 18, 2016 

This is about accidentology relating to health and safety at work. There are various levels of cause. Causes can be analysed. And, like most areas of analysis, theories have been developped.
The term posted is "cause primaire". I read "cause primaire" as being the FR equivalent of the English "primary cause". I agree with the GDT and consider that "root cause" is in fact the English for "cause fondamentale".
Example : a person trips over in the company workshop and is injured. Witnesses confirm that the employee tripped on a part of the flooring which is damaged.
Primary cause : the damaged flooring
Root cause : the company's lack of funds to maintain and repair the flooring.

Other factors may come into play. They are causal factors, contributory factors, whatever. The root cause (or fundamental factor) remains the lack of money. But the employee did not trip up on lack of money; he tripped up on unmaintained/unrepaired flooring (primary cause). Colleagues may have distracted him, causing the employee to exercise less care. These distractions are contributory factors, but the primary cause remains the bad flooring and the root/fundamental cause remains the lack of money.

21:40 May 18, 2016 

I think "root causes" backtranslate to "causes fondamentales" and that these precede "primary causes" or "causes primaires". As the term posted is "causes primaires", as I understand it, the term you need is "primary causes" and not "root causes".