A year after mass protests against the Duplomb law, Parliament is again debating bringing back acetamiprid and flupyradifurone. Essential for some, intolerable for others, the move is splitting political parties and civil society alike.
French MPs are due to vote on Monday evening on the emergency agriculture bill, whose final version was approved last Thursday by a joint committee (CMP). A piece of legislation whose adoption is far from a foregone conclusion.
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Of the 78 articles contained in the bill, one in particular is splitting France’s political forces: the reintroduction, by way of derogation, of acetamiprid and flupyradifurone – two pesticides banned in France but authorised in the European Union – for certain struggling sectors.
Last year, the bill put forward by Senator Laurent Duplomb, which already envisaged the return of acetamiprid, ran into strong public opposition, leading to a widely supported petition. The provision was ultimately struck down by the Constitutional Council.
A divisive bill, even within the government
In an effort to rally his troops ahead of the vote, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu convened a meeting at Matignon on Monday with the main representatives of the government coalition (Renaissance, MoDem, Horizons, LR), the centrist Liot group, as well as ministers Annie Genevard, Monique Barbut, Mathieu Lefèvre and Laurent Panifous.
The Minister for Ecological Transition, Monique Barbut, said on Saturday that the reintroduction of banned pesticides remained "the main sticking point".
"To make this bill fail out of ideology, calculation or fear would utterly dash farmers’ hopes", argued Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard.
Renaissance MP Prisca Thevenot says that "it is urgent that [the bill] be passed and implemented" but that "out of 78 articles there is one that raises questions" and puts the legislation "in mortal danger". She is categorical: "Acetamiprid must not appear in this bill."
Prisca Thevenot had previously recalled that the government could "always table an amendment to delete acetamiprid" before Monday’s final vote.
The secretary-general of Renaissance, Gabriel Attal, had also urged "the government to table a deleting amendment" for the article concerning acetamiprid, according to a Les Républicains (LR) MP speaking to AFP.
Late on Monday afternoon, people close to Sébastien Lecornu nonetheless confirmed that Matignon was not proposing to scrap this derogation, preferring to let Parliament "decide" the matter.
The current version of the bill is backed by the Rassemblement national (RN) as well as many right-wing and centrist MPs.
By contrast, most Horizons MPs "seem to favour removing acetamiprid", according to a source close to the talks. As for MoDem, while one source indicated that "the acetamiprid totem continues to raise questions for some MPs", no common position has yet been made public.
Environmental concerns
A year after the revolt against the Duplomb law, this new bill is once again dividing French society, at a time when the climate context is sharpening anxieties over environmental protection.
For the environmental association Générations Futures, bringing back banned pesticides would mark "the Senate’s deadly U-turn".
Conversely, the president of the Confédération générale des planteurs de betteraves sucrières (CGB), Franck Sander, believes that the reauthorisation "in a targeted and regulated way" of flupyradifurone "is an essential condition for our competitiveness when all the indicators are flashing red".
The reform of water storage for agricultural irrigation, provided for in the emergency agriculture law, is another source of contention. Several protests against this measure are planned this week, including a demonstration on Monday evening at Les Invalides.
Annie Genevard nonetheless considers this reform a "common-sense" measure. "If we give up on this emergency agriculture law, we condemn the French to imported food. I will not accept that", she said on X.
The vote on this bill in the National Assembly, ahead of its passage to the Senate on Tuesday, comes as recent heatwaves have pushed environmental issues back to the forefront of French concerns.
Almost a third of them (32%) now consider environmental protection a priority issue, according to a poll carried out for La Tribune Dimanche, a 12-point increase.
