France remains neutral on glyphosate

1 year ago 43

France will again abstain from Thursday’s second vote on the European Commission’s proposal to renew the approval of the contentious herbicide glyphosate for the next decade, French Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau made said on Wednesday.

On 13 October, member states failed to reach the required qualified majority to approve glyphosate use for another 10 years during a vote behind closed doors in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF Committee).

It was agreed that another vote would be held in the first half of November.

But “if there is no change, there is no reason for the vote to change”, Fesneau told France Info on Wednesday morning.

In the first vote in October, France justified its abstention, stating it wanted to reduce the use of glyphosate without imposing a total ban.

“We are the only country in the world to have reduced glyphosate use by 30%”, said Fesneau, adding that “no European country is doing without glyphosate” because alternatives are lacking.

France has gradually reduced glyphosate use in the past years, recently reducing the amount it uses by 27% compared with the period 2015-2017, even though there was a 42% increase between 2019 and 2020, according to ministry figures.

The renewal is again expected to be voted against on Thursday by Germany, Austria and Luxembourg – the only country to have outright banned the weedkiller – as all three countries voted against the Commission’s proposal during the first vote.

Reactions

“I denounce France’s cowardice and hypocrisy on glyphosate. Abstaining without proposing an alternative means letting the European Commission decide on its own, and therefore allowing its unacceptable proposal to go through”, Socialist MEP Christophe Clergeau said on X Wednesday.

But Stéphanie Yon-Courtin MEP (Renew) defended the French position, labelling the Commission’s proposal as “unacceptable”.

“We want harmonisation of France’s restrictive approach”, “but what are we offering farmers? They need a safety net”, she said.

For several days, NGOs, farmers’ unions and consumer organisations have pressured Fesneau to reconsider his position.

Besides the 2015 WHO study that classifies glyphosate as a probable carcinogen and the latest Italian study linking glyphosate exposure to leukaemia, the group also points to French President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 promise to ban the herbicide “within three years”.

“I assure you that I am interested in the health of the French”, Fesneau insisted, acknowledging that without an effective alternative “, a total ban is not possible”.

Those, like Fesneau, who oppose a ban with no alternative in sight point to the dozens of regulatory agencies (including EFSA) that have concluded that glyphosate’s carcinogenic risk is unlikely.

(Hugo Struna | Euractiv.fr)