Cyrielle Chatelain on the Duplomb law: "By trying to stifle debate in the Assembly, they have made it take hold everywhere in society"

More than two weeks after its launch, the petition against the Duplomb Law has surpassed two million signatures on the National Assembly website. Faced with the scale of the mobilization against this bill, which reauthorizes several pesticides previously banned in France, the president of the Green Party deputies, Cyrielle Chatelain, is calling on Emmanuel Macron to refuse to enact the law and to have it voted on again. Speaking to Libération, the Isère MP denounced the government's misinformation and announced that a repeal bill would be introduced by the left if the bill is enacted.

This petition comes in the middle of summer, right in the middle of the parliamentary recess. What political follow-up do you intend to give to this petition?

This is the gamble the government and its supporters had made: to have the text adopted on July 8 and have it forgotten by the summer. The petition shows precisely that this is not a text that will be forgotten. There will be several key moments during the summer: the first remains the decision of the Constitutional Council [a priori on August 7, editor's note], to which the ecologists have filed an appeal with La France Insoumise. We have arguments to plead in favor of censure of the text or of a certain number of its provisions. If, despite this, the Council decides to validate the text, the challenge will be to continue to put pressure on Emmanuel Macron.

What do you expect from him and his government?

Emmanuel Macron must use Article 10 of the Constitution to ask Parliament to vote on this text once again. The scale of the mobilization is a new element that clearly reveals the position of the French people. The government and its supporters must also stop spreading disinformation and end their denial. By trying to stifle debate in the National Assembly [by using a motion of rejection at first reading to circumvent opposition amendments], they have spread it throughout society.

A new vote may very well go the same way as the first time...

A second vote could be completely different from the first. The question is what position the parliamentarians who support the government will take. There are two million signatories. This means there are several hundred, several thousand in the constituencies. Supporters of the bill must be accountable to their voters, even though scientific evidence demonstrates the dangers of this bill, particularly in terms of health.

Emmanuel Macron and the Bayrou government may very well dismiss this petition. What influence do you really have on this issue?

For us, the Constitutional Council remains a room for maneuver as long as it has not ruled at this stage. The fairest and most respectful course of action would be for Emmanuel Macron not to promulgate the bill. If that is the case, we will do two things: we will ask the Conference of Presidents to hold a new debate in accordance with the number of signatures, and we will submit a draft law for repeal, which will be debated, I am sure, within the year.

This petition was submitted two days after the vote. Didn't it arrive too late?

This petition actually comes at the time of the vote. But even before that, there was already a mobilization of many stakeholders. We had platforms from doctors and scientists warning of the dangers of the Duplomb law. We had all the parliamentary work, with a number of warnings made during questions to the government. We have been actively mobilized for several months, with the idea that common sense and the general interest would prevail: we cannot authorize a dangerous, neurotoxic, and carcinogenic product. There was a shock at the time of the vote, which then triggered this mobilization around the petition. How did the financial interests of a tiny part of the agricultural world prevail over public health interests? This is the anger being expressed today.