A new law in France allowing the reintroduction of a banned pesticide has sparked a massive response for a petition opposing it, which on Saturday had gathered more than 600,000 signatures.<\/p>\n
The so-called “Duplomb law” has stirred public anger for permitting a return of acetamiprid — a chemical known to be toxic to pollinators such as bees and to ecosystems. It was adopted on July 8 but has not yet come into effect.<\/p>\n
The legislation, named after the conservative lawmaker who proposed it, was presented in parliament as a measure to “reduce constraints” on French farmers.<\/p>\n
But its move to bring back acetamiprid prompted a 23-year-old master’s student to launch a petition against it which quickly snowballed, gathering support from many people, including actors and several leftwing lawmakers.<\/p>\n
The French parliament’s official website showed it had accumulated more signatures than any other. At 8:30 pm (1830 GMT) Saturday the counter had passed 620,000.<\/p>\n
The petition’s author, Eleonore Pattery, who describes herself as “a future environmental health professional”, called the new law a “scientific, ethical, environmental and public health aberration”.<\/p>\n
“It represents a frontal attack on public health, biodiversity, the coherence of climate policies, food security, and common sense,” she said.<\/p>\n
– A ‘bee killer’ –<\/p>\n
Acetamiprid has been banned in France since 2018, but remains legal within the European Union.<\/p>\n
The insecticide is particularly sought after by beet and hazelnut growers, who say they have no alternative against pests and face unfair competition.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, beekeepers have described the chemical as “a bee killer”.<\/p>\n
Its effects on humans are also a source of concern but, in the absence of large-scale studies, its risks remain unclear.<\/p>\n
The petition calls for the “immediate repeal” of the law and a “citizen-led consultation involving health, agricultural, environmental and legal stakeholders”.<\/p>\n
Petitions do not in themselves trigger a review or repeal of the legislation but unprecedented public support may prompt renewed parliamentary discussion on the matter.<\/p>\n
Under French rules, if a petition reaches 500,000 verified signatures, the National Assembly may choose to hold a public debate limited to the content of the petition itself.<\/p>\n
In late June, before the law’s passage, several thousand demonstrators \u2014 including farmers, environmental organisations and scientists \u2014 rallied across France calling for the bill to be withdrawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new law in France allowing the reintroduction of a banned pesticide has sparked a massive response for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36,11967],"class_list":{"0":"post-276140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-partners-afp"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114882903092114642","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}