The protest against the Duplomb law, adopted on July 8, was manifested in a petition gathering 2 million signatures (as of July 28) – enough to open a new debate in the National Assembly. The main points of protest concern the reintroduction of two controversial pesticides ( acetamiprid and flupyradifurone) and the erosion of the prerogatives of the French National Agency for Food Safety (ANSES) in the marketing of pesticides.
Faced with this unprecedented mobilization, the bearer of the law, LR senator Laurent Duplomb , declared that the hundreds of thousands of signatures collected "do not inspire him with much" , considering that his law is " demonized and exploited by the left ".
A highly polarized debate on pesticides
For environmentalists and the left, supported by a portion of the scientific community, the dangers of the pesticides in question are well established. They pose multiple risks to biodiversity, particularly bees, and raise serious doubts about their neurodevelopmental effects on human health, according to the European Food Agency. The reauthorization of acetamiprid, banned in France in 2023 but still authorized in Europe, appears unacceptable. It amounts to prioritizing economic interests at the expense of human and environmental health.
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On the other hand, for farmers and their representatives, particularly beet and hazelnut producers, acetamiprid is the only effective way to combat the green aphid that transmits the dreaded jaundice disease. In 2020, this caused a drop in beet production by a third, leading to an increase in imports of Brazilian and German sugar treated with acetamiprid. Ultimately, why should French agriculture, frightened by its current loss of competitiveness, pay the price for its ban?
Protecting beetroot without pesticides is possible
These two divided positions now appear irreconcilable. What does the science say? First, the evidence is now sufficiently robust to establish that the dangers of neonicotinoids to humans and the environment are too worrisome and too widespread to consider controlling them.
The coating technique (i.e., the process by which powders and liquids are used to form a coating around the seed) does not limit the pesticide's impact. In addition to its dangers to bees, acetamiprid remains a long-term environmental hazard. The product is water-soluble and highly mobile in soil, posing enormous risks to biodiversity, as demonstrated by the 2022 Inrae/Ifremer joint expert report.
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But is it really possible to leave producers in the situation of being crushed by competition from imported foodstuffs filled with substances banned on their soil? The political challenge is thus to bring together "biodiversity" and "agriculture" . However, INRAE's expert work shows that agriculture can rely on biodiversity to achieve entirely satisfactory performance.
This approach was chosen by the 2020 to 2023 sugar beet sector plan to address the ban on neonicotinoids. The Ministry of Agriculture then set up a "plan" with INRAE and the Technical Institute for Sugar Beet to find substitutes for neonicotinoids.
Another way to protect crops was proposed: it was no longer a matter of attacking the aphid that causes yellowing, but rather the hotbeds conducive to its appearance. The results were conclusive: eliminating these reservoirs made it possible to obtain yields equivalent to those obtained with chemical treatments. This solution remained imperfect since pesticides could be used as a last resort (but in much smaller quantities), but only when chemical-free solutions failed. Moreover, solutions have not yet been found for all crops, particularly for hazelnuts.
The Duplomb law, a simplistic and retrograde response
The Duplomb law is theoretically in line with these plans but in reality takes the opposite path: it maintains chemistry as the priority solution and only considers alternatives superficially, and in the greatest vagueness. The decrees of exemptions for the use of neonicotinoids will, according to the law, be granted subject to "the search for an alternative plan" . But how will the new Crop Protection Support Committee provided for in the text and placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture consider these alternatives? With what means and what timeframe, when the authorization decrees are signed in parallel at a rapid pace?
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The Duplomb law ultimately has a powerful perverse effect: by going for the simplest solution, it delays the search for alternatives to pesticides.
Why such a setback? Probably in response to the 2024 farmers' movement, which expressed "fed up" with environmental standards and which constantly threatens to resume. But these demands mask a deep-seated problem that I have sought to identify in my work: the incompatibility between environmental standards and commercial requirements, which can lead producers to break the law when they use pesticides (by exceeding the dose per hectare set by regulations, for example).
But the Duplomb law responds to this anger in a doubly simplistic manner. It unquestioningly repeats the demands of the 2024 movement—demands for the continued use of pesticides without alternatives, flexibility in the authorization of plant protection products, and relaxation of formalities governing the size of livestock farms and access to water (megabasins).
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On the other hand, the law does not address the real administrative constraints that weigh on producers (declarations, formalities of all kinds). Above all, it does not tackle the root of the distortions of competition that occur at the supranational level.
Reducing distortion should involve harmonizing approval decisions at the European level, rather than just at the national level. The introduction of "mirror clauses" in international trade agreements would make it possible to prohibit the import of foodstuffs produced with phytosanitary substances banned in Europe.
Threats to Anses
Is the Duplomb law just another law designed to send symbolic signals to farmers, or is it the tool of a deeper regressive policy on the environmental front?
A provision of the law justifies this concern. It concerns the prerogatives of the French National Agency for Food Safety (ANSES) over the marketing of pesticides.
As a reminder, prior to 2014, the Ministry of Agriculture issued pesticide authorizations after a scientific assessment conducted by the agency. At that time, Stéphane Le Foll, then Minister of Agriculture, transferred this authority to ANSES in order to provide better guarantees against potential collusion of interests between the Ministry of Agriculture and the interests of the agricultural sector.
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The drafters of the Duplomb Law considered several avenues for reducing the power of ANSES and restoring the prerogatives of the Ministry of Agriculture. Finally, faced with the threat of the agency's director's resignation, a compromise solution was found: ANSES will now be more accountable to its supervisory ministries in the event of a pesticide release.
The text also provides for a list of "priority uses" of pests that threaten national production potential. ANSES will therefore have to consider the priorities of the Ministry of Agriculture when establishing its review schedule for marketing authorizations. In short, ANSES retains its prerogatives but now moves forward with greater control, when the only issue should be strengthening its powers.
In recent years, the Ministry of Agriculture has made numerous attempts to undermine its expertise. In 2023, the ministry specifically requested that ANSES reverse its ban on the main uses of the herbicide S-metolachlor. However imperfect the risk assessment, the agency is carrying out considerable work to consolidate scientific knowledge on the dangers of pesticides, notably through a phytopharmacovigilance network that is unique in Europe.
Thus, the Duplomb law seems to signal a desire to return to the era when the ministry co-managed the country's entire agricultural policy with the unions, as it did sixty years ago with the French Agricultural Council (CAF). This comes at the cost of suspending scientific achievements in health and the environment if they undermine agricultural competitiveness in the short term? Future political decisions will allow us to answer this question with greater certainty.
This article is an op-ed, written by an author outside the newspaper and whose point of view does not reflect the editorial staff's views.
