The Council of State, in a decision rendered Monday, asks the government to strengthen within six months the regulations governing the spreading of pesticides "to better protect the population".

After several months of controversy, the government had set in December 2019 the minimum distances to be observed between the areas where phytosanitary products are spread and homes: five meters for so-called low crops such as vegetables and cereals, and ten meters for crops. tall, fruit trees or vines.

The decree also provided for exemptions reducing these distances to three meters for tall crops and five for low ones, within the framework of "departmental commitment charters" proposed by users of phytosanitary products and validated by the prefects after having been submitted to public consultation.

"These minimum distances and the conditions for drawing up charters were challenged before the Council of State by associations, municipalities and organic farmers who considered them insufficiently protective, and by farmers and a chamber of agriculture who considered them excessive" , recalls the Council of State in a press release.

A minimum distance of 10 meters

The Council of State indicates that the National Health Security Agency [Anses] "recommends a minimum distance of 10 meters between homes and areas where any product classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic is spread, without distinguishing whether their effects are proven, suspected or only suspected ”. Consequently, the highest French administrative court judges that "the minimum distances for spreading products of which the toxicity is only suspected, which have been set at five meters for low crops such as vegetables or cereals, are insufficient" .

It also asks the government to "provide protective measures for people working near an area where pesticides are used, which the regulations in force do not do".

He believes that "the charters of commitments to use must provide for the information of residents and people present near the spraying areas upstream of the use of pesticides".

The Council of State gives the government six months to review its copy.

It also cancels the conditions for drawing up charters and their approval by the prefect "because they could not be defined by a decree, but only by law" in accordance with a decision of the Constitutional Council issued in March 2021.

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