They want to urgently suspend texts fixing the minimum distances between pesticide spreading areas and homes, as well as derogations from them. Associations and the collective of anti-pesticide mayors asked the Council of State to rule on Tuesday.
The collective of mayors, chaired by the mayor of Langouët (Ille-et-Vilaine), Daniel Cueff, who was the first to take a decree banning pesticides in his municipality, had already seized the Council of State in January to request the suspension of the decree and the decree of December 27, 2019 fixing the minimum distances between the spreading of pesticides and homes, considered insufficient to protect populations.
Without ruling on the merits, the highest administrative court had considered that the condition of urgency was not met. The collective, which brings together some 120 mayors, has again seized the judge in summary proceedings of a request for suspension, justifying this new request by the context of the Covid-19 epidemic and new scientific publications.
"Established" links between air pollution and Covid risk
Corinne Lepage, their lawyer, notably estimated that "the links between pesticides and air pollution are established and it is quite clear that the populations of zones with polluted air present an increased fragility in Covid" and produced a Dutch study showing traces of pesticides up to 250 meters from their place of spreading.
The decree and decree published on December 27 after several months of controversy define the distances to be respected: five meters for so-called low crops such as vegetables and cereals and ten meters for tall crops, fruit or vines.
A distance increased to 20 meters for the “most dangerous” products, which represent around 0.3% of the active substances used.
At the same hearing, nine NGOs led by Générations Futures, including France Nature Environnement, UFC Que Choisir or Eau et rivières, asked for the suspension of various texts softening the conditions for validating exemptions reducing the distances to three meters for tall crops and five for the low.
The decree of December 27 provided for these derogations within the framework of "departmental commitment charters", proposed by the users of phytosanitary products and validated by the prefects after having been submitted to public consultation.
"How can the State sit on its own texts? "
Texts from the Ministry of Agriculture had relaxed these conditions in February and March, providing in particular that the mere intention of presenting such a charter opens the right to derogations, due to the confinement faced with the Covid epidemic.
"How can the State sit down so easily on its own texts? "Wondered François Lafforgue, lawyer of associations, seeing there" almost a desire not to take protective measures "and arguing of the urgency to cancel these texts because" in spring we are in the middle of a spreading period "for seedlings.
Exceptional "commitment charters" have already been validated in 25 departments, to the chagrin of environmental associations, and are being planned in around 50 others, according to the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture. In the latter case, due to the deconfinement started on Monday, he indicated that the ministry now considered that the derogatory procedure was no longer necessary.
The summary judge estimated that this latest announcement should be formalized by the ministry and should make its decision by the end of the week.
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