The Council of State considers that this competence belongs to the State.

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Damien MEYER / AFP

The decision was rendered on December 31 but we do not learn until today.

The Council of State has definitively considered that the mayors of municipalities did not have the power to issue decrees prohibiting the use of pesticides in their municipalities.

The highest French administrative court considers that the regulation of these contested products falls within the prerogatives of the State.

The Council of State rejects an appeal by the town of Arcueil against the suspension - at first instance and then on appeal - at the request of the prefect of Val-de-Marne, of a decree of this type taken in September 2019. administrative judges underline in particular that "the power of special police of plant protection products entrusted to the authorities of the State obstructs the enactment, by the mayor of a municipality, of regulatory measures of general prohibition of the use of these products ".

Several municipalities invested

This decision comes to close a long legal-political series, started in May 2019 when the mayor of Langouët Daniel Cueff, who has since left office, had issued a decree prohibiting the use of plant protection products at a distance of less than 150 meters from any dwelling.

His decree was quickly canceled at the request of state representatives, but the initiative had sparked a wide debate in France on the use of pesticides.

Several dozen municipalities had subsequently taken similar decrees, including Paris and Lille, the movement being supported by parties and NGOs, green or left in particular.

Procedures still in progress

"It is a very negative opinion, but we do not give up, we did not do all that to stop," said Florence Presson, deputy mayor of Sceaux (Hauts-de- Seine) and one of the managers of the Anti-Pesticide Mayors Collective.

Communes of the Collective have notably filed several requests for a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) on the subject, told AFP Corinne Lepage, former Minister of Ecology and lawyer for the collective, as well as about forty municipalities involved. .

These requests invoke in particular the right to health and the precautionary principle.

The group also plans to seize the European Commission of an action against France for "failure to protect residents".

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