Paris (AFP)
Two pesticides with the same mode of action as neonicotinoids, harmful to bees, are now banned, according to a decree published Tuesday in the Official Journal.
The two substances concerned, flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor, are considered to be new generation neonicotinoids, the prohibition of which is provided for by the Egalim Food Law.
Neonicotinoids, which appeared in the 1990s and have become the most widely used insecticides in the world, attack the nervous system of insects, and therefore pollinators. Even at low doses, bees and bumblebees are disoriented, no longer find their hive, the sperm of the males is altered ...
Five neonicotinoids (clothianidin, thiamethoxam, imidacloprid, thiacloprid and acetamiprid) had already been banned from any phytosanitary use in September 2018.
In September, following the vote of the Egalim law, the Ministry of Ecological Transition had put in consultation a draft decree providing for adding sulfoxaflor and flupyradifurone to this list.
Even before this ban, which takes effect on January 1, neither of the two substances was available in products marketed in France.
Putting forward the risk for bees, justice, seized by associations of defense of the environment, had suspended then prohibited at the beginning of December the sale of two products based on sulfoxaflor of the American manufacturer Dow AgroSciences (Corteva).
The French Health Security Agency (ANSES), which had given authorization in 2017 to market these two products, had decided not to contest the decision, citing the forthcoming ban on the two "new" neonicotinoids.
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