Pesticides: authorization procedures attacked before Council of State

Thirty NGOs and many deputies enter the Council of State to force the government to take into account the “cocktail effect” of all the formulants entering the composition of pesticides.

by Stéphane Mandard and Stéphane Foucart

After neonicotinoids, will the government be forced to review all of its procedures for marketing pesticides to better take into account their toxicity? Forced by European justice to renounce prolonging the derogations for “bee killers” insecticides, the executive is now targeted by an action before the administrative jurisdiction for its “deficiencies in the homologation of pesticides” and a “sub-” sub evaluation “of their toxicity.

An appeal was to be filed on Thursday, February 2, before the Council of State to ask the government, and in particular the Minister of Agriculture, in charge of this file, to take into account the effects of all the formulants which enter into the composition of pesticides and to comply with European legislation which stipulates that a phytosanitary product can only be marketed if its safety is proven short or long-term.

Among the applicants, thirty organizations (our case to all, the peasant confederation, future generations, act for the environment or even federations of beekeepers) brought together under the banner of the “toxic secrets” campaign, alongside Twenty-three deputies. Like the deputy (La France Insoumise) of the Gironde, Loïc Prud’homme or the deputy (Europe Ecologie-les Verts, EELV) of Bas-Rhin, Sandra Regol, all are recruited in the ranks of the Nuts. “We can no longer close our eyes to the need to revise the evaluation and authorization processes of placing these harmful substances that are found in our floors, in tap water, in our plates “, Comments the deputy for Drôme (EELV), Marie Pochon.

arsenic, lead, perfluorized compounds … not declared

NGO and parliamentarians ask the Government to include, in the requests for permitting pesticides, long -term toxicity analyzes and carcinogenicity relating to complete formulations – that is to say -Dire on pesticides as marketed – and not only on the active substance declared by the manufacturer, as is the case today. Several scientific publications have indeed highlighted the presence of compounds not declared by manufacturers: arsenic, lead, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, perfluorized compounds … Also, the toxicity of these cocktails which are complete formulations could be much higher than that of substances declared active.

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/Media reports cited above.