Judge Pierre Vennéguès invokes in his order "the plea alleging incompetence of the mayor of Langouët to regulate the use of plant protection products in the territory of his commune" which is "likely to create a serious doubt as to the legality of the "disputed order".
The anti-pesticides decree that had taken, May 18, the environmental mayor of Langouët (Ille-et-Vilaine), Daniel Cueff, prohibiting the use of plant protection products, was suspended Tuesday, August 26. It prohibited the use of these pesticides "at a distance of less than 150 meters from any cadastral parcel including a building for residential or professional use".
The prefecture had requested the suspension of this interim order on the grounds that a mayor is not competent to take decisions on the use of phytosanitary products, including in the name of the precautionary principle, a power reserved for the State.
The mayor of Langouët has indicated his intention to appeal against this decision of the judge of interim relief, and called the other rural mayors to make a similar order to his.
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Béatrice de François, mayor of the municipality of Parempuyre, in the Bordeaux metropolis, has also taken an order in recent days prohibiting "formally" phyto-pharmaceutical products "within 100 meters of any dwelling or public space".
Like Daniel Cueff and Béatrice de François, twenty other local elected officials banned the use of pesticides on part of their municipality.
"To move the lines, to protect the inhabitants, it may be necessary to disobey a little," said the mayor of Langouët, claiming to have received "thousands of messages of support." "Many mayors are being questioned by their inhabitants and we will have to find a solution," he added.
On August 22, during the hearing, the mayor had pleaded for "a distance away pesticides on a plot that remains cultivable with less dangerous products."
"Mobilize to change the law"
Emmanuel Macron had affirmed to support "in his intentions" the Breton mayor. "There are laws, she (the prefect) must enforce them, so I will always be behind the prefects who enforce the laws," he pleaded the head of state, saying that "the solution n ' is not to take a decree that is not in accordance with the law "but rather" to mobilize to change the law ".
In this sense, the French president wanted to "go towards a framing of pesticide application areas", pointing out "the consequences on public health".
The Minister of Ecological Transition, Elisabeth Borne, she said Tuesday, on France inter, share "totally the concern of the mayor of Langouët" and announced that a regulatory project was under consideration to establish a "minimal area between spreading and dwellings ".
. @ Elisabeth_Borne: "I totally share the concern of the mayor of Langouët: I will consult in the coming days a draft new regulation [on pesticides]" # the79Inter pic.twitter.com/c6ZQoQLS6G
France Inter (@franceinter) August 27, 2019"We have contradictory signals," commented Daniel Cueff. "Unless it is a new illustration of the politics of 'at the same time': at the same time, the mayor of Langouët is right and, at the same time, he is wrong," he added.
With AFP