On October 29, La France Insoumise will present a bill aimed at re-banning acetamiprid and flupyradifurone. The bill will be examined during the group's allotted parliamentary time, a day on which it controls the National Assembly's agenda. Mathilde Panot intends to overturn a provision in the emergency agricultural law that authorized, under certain conditions, the temporary reintroduction of these two products.
The law, published in the Official Journal after its validation by the Constitutional Council, allows for exemptions for several crops considered threatened. Acetamiprid, in particular, can be authorized for the hazelnut sector, while flupyradifurone concerns apples, cherries, and sugar beets. The Constitutional Council determined that protecting agricultural production capacity and combating distortions of European competition serve a public interest objective.
A new parliamentary battle has been announced.
Mathilde Panot points out that more than 2,2 million people signed a petition against the return of certain neonicotinoids. The leader of the LFI group also cites warnings issued by several representatives of the medical and scientific communities regarding the potential consequences of these substances. She believes that farmers' difficulties stem more from free trade agreements and foreign competition than from the ban on the pesticides in question.
The debate is expected to pit environmental protection imperatives against the economic difficulties faced by certain agricultural sectors. The Constitutional Council acknowledges that acetamiprid and flupyradifurone can affect pollinators, birds, soil, and water quality, while also posing risks to human health. Nevertheless, it upheld the exemptions, subject to restrictions concerning, in particular, their geographical scope and the timeframes granted to the health authority to issue its decision.
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