The Senate voted on the night of Monday to Tuesday June 30 to insert into the agricultural emergency bill a criticized measure allowing the reintroduction of banned pesticides, a major irritant for the government, worried about the fate of its text a year after the revolt against the Duplomb law.
Tenacious agricultural anger since last winter, divided political parties, associations on the rise and a highly flammable return measure… The senators struck hard on the first day of the examination of the government project by resurrecting part of the measures of the Duplomb law (Les Républicains), partially censored last year by the Constitutional Council.
By 183 votes to 129, the upper house unsurprisingly positioned itself to authorize the exceptional and controlled reintroduction of two phytosanitary products, acetamiprid and flupyradifurone, insecticides banned in France but authorized elsewhere in Europe.
“We are the only ones to ban molecules in Europe for more than ten years. We are slowly killing our French fruit production to end up mass importing these same fruits, produced with these same molecules,” explained Laurent Duplomb. A “hypocrisy” which weakens certain sectors such as beets, apples, cherries and hazelnuts, according to him. The exemptions would also target precisely these sectors in difficulty, a wording deemed “proportionate” according to its defenders.
On the other side of the hemicycle, the left shouted “pro-pesticide overbidding” and “relentlessness”, relaying the concerns of environmental defense associations outraged at the prospect of seeing the reintroduced acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid toxic to biodiversity and potentially to human health.
Government embarrassment
The environmentalist senator Daniel Salmon castigated “a gigantic renunciation”, the socialist Jean-Claude Tissot an “unacceptable step backwards”.
The government could not hide its embarrassment at these measures, aware that such a political totem risked complicating the further examination of this bill, adopted in the National Assembly at the beginning of June with support ranging from the presidential camp to the National Rally. The executive has clearly identified the risks: if the central bloc fractures around this aspect, the text could be deprived of a majority.
“What I fear is that this question is so virulent that it could take away the entire text,” worried the Minister of Agriculture Annie Genevard. “We wouldn’t be forgiven for this on the farms,” she had already warned a little earlier. “When serious doubts exist about the effects of a substance for human health or biodiversity, our responsibility is to act with caution,” added Minister of Ecological Transition Monique Barbut.
This point will be at the heart of upcoming negotiations between deputies and senators, who will be responsible in mid-July for finding common ground on this text during a joint committee (CMP).
Ministerial dissonance
But this section on insecticides is far from being the only irritant of the text, especially since the Senate, dominated by the right, promises to lift a little more the constraints on the profession of farmer in several key sectors such as water management and wolf predation.
These measures have also embarrassed Monique Barbut in recent days, who noted certain “setbacks” in the parliamentarians’ copy, calling on them on Monday to restore the “balance” of the text. In a speech with a much more conciliatory tone, Annie Genevard refuted the existence of “environmental setbacks” in the text proposed by the Senate… A statement in total contradiction with that of her colleague.
Coming out of an exceptional heatwave, a dense shutter on the water is likely to be the talk of the town in the coming days. It plans to ease the environmental obligations underlying the construction of storage facilities, and the Senate plans to strengthen it.
Another much-discussed part of the text, the means offered to breeders to protect themselves from wolves, with the removal of prior authorization required to carry out defensive shots during attacks on all herds.
The government will make amendments to remove several of these additions. More than 800 amendments must still be put to the vote, presaging long debates.
