Paris (AFP)

A controversial palm oil byproduct could benefit from the maintenance of the tax niche on biofuels removed by the Assembly, two environmental defense NGOs denounced on Friday, which the government denied.

La Canopée, specialized in the defense of the forest, and Greenpeace France denounce a customs note to professional federations, made public by Mediapart and of which AFP obtained a copy, which indicates that this tax niche would be maintained for biofuels produced at from a residual product from the refining of palm oil, fatty acids known by the acronym PFAD.

In this note dated December 19, the Deputy Director of Customs Taxation writes that "biofuels produced from PFAD will not be excluded from the (tax niche) mechanism from January 1, 2020: these biofuels cannot in fact not be considered palm oil products. "

Asked before about an initial alert from NGOs ensuring that it wanted to modify a decree on the classification of PFADs, allowing their reintegration into the tax niche, the Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition (MTES) denied on Thursday, while indicating that the government clearly considered that "these products are not palm oil, but residues produced during refining".

He said that "broad and transparent consultation will be held in early January with economic players as with environmental associations".

After the publication of the customs note, Greenpeace denounced "a hoax of bad quality". "It is indeed palm oil, with the same disastrous consequences in terms of deforestation," the NGO said in a statement.

But the MTES assured AFP that if this note "recalls that PFADs are not comparable to palm oil" it "has no consequences and is not sufficient for Total to source PFAD in 2020 '.

PFADs "are not, however, eligible for the enhanced tax benefit of advanced biofuels" and their use would require a decree on their sustainability ranking "which will not be taken without debate", assures the ministry.

The National Assembly had excluded in November, against the advice of the government, palm oil from biofuels which benefit from a tax advantage. The use of imported palm oil is denounced by environmental NGOs because its extensive cultivation fuels deforestation in Southeast Asia.

But the Total group in particular opposes this exclusion, which he says calls into question the viability of its biorefinery in La Mède (Bouches-du-Rhône), which opened in July.

© 2019 AFP