• The toxicity of pesticides has been debated for several years and is at the heart of legal battles led by activist associations.

  • According to Toxic Secrets, which brings together several of them, the assessment of the toxicity of pesticides before they are placed on the French market is incomplete and does not comply with European regulations.

  • Several associations and French parliamentarians have decided to submit a prior request to the government to bring it into compliance, before appealing to the Council of State.

Do the pesticides marketed in France all comply with European regulations?

No, if we are to believe several French associations and parliamentarians who have decided to step up.

The latter filed, on Wednesday, a preliminary request with the government which, according to them, has incorrectly transposed the European regulation.

Since 2007, this has required a complete assessment of the toxicity of products before they are placed on the market.

Which would not be the case on the national territory.

“On October 1, 2019, we obtained a judgment from the European Court of Justice, applicable to all Member States, which interprets this European regulation and explains how the assessments must be carried out.

There must be long-term assessments of the toxicity and carcinogenicity of these products on their complete composition.

However, there are no long-term toxicity analyzes of complete products.

There is a European analysis of the declared active substance, however, the product in its complete formulation, as sold and to which consumers are exposed, is never analyzed in the long term", explains Guillaume Tumerelle, lawyer for Toxic Secrets, a coalition of several associations working for the banning of 14 pesticides.

"Cocktail effect" not rated

For glyphosate, for example, if the toxicity of the active substance has been assessed in the marketing dossier, that of two of its co-formulants, and therefore the "cocktail effect" that could result from it, is much less legible. according to activists.

“For one of the co-formulants of glyphosate, it is impossible to find long-term toxicity data in the databases.

And for the second, the European Food Safety Authority has done an assessment that says there are not enough studies on subchronic toxicity.

There are shortcomings both in the method of calculation and in the data available.

Under these conditions it is absolutely impossible to meet the requirements of the regulations, ”points out Andy Battentier, the director of the Toxic Secrets campaign.

It is based in particular on recent expert appraisals carried out by Inserm and Inrae Ifremer which "demonstrate, on the basis of thousands of scientific publications, the existence of numerous deleterious effects of pesticides, both on human health and on the environment, despite European and national regulatory requirements".



For several years, the associations have been waging a fight, particularly before the courts, against phytosanitary products.

Sometimes with success, as in 2019, when the Lyon administrative court of appeal upheld the ban on marketing Roundup Pro 360, a glyphosate-based weedkiller from Monsanto.

“Because it is not only by denouncing a state of affairs that we will make things move forward.

We decided to bring the iron to the legal arena to assert the law, because there are a certain number of decisions taken within the framework of European law but which are not respected.

This is what we denounce today, ”supports François Veillerette, spokesperson for Future Generations.

If the French text is not modified within two months by the government of Elisabeth Borne, or if the latter fails to respond to this prior request, its signatories will then file an appeal before the Council of State.

The latter ask the State, and the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety, to systematically include these complete analyzes in the marketing authorization application files. pesticide market.

“ANSES constantly justifies the quality of its work in monitoring marketing authorizations and approvals by saying “look, we withdraw authorizations after 10, 15 or 20 years , proof that we are doing relevant reassessment work".

I call that toxicity assessment in the real population because after 15 or 20 years, when a product is withdrawn when it is discovered that it has effects on biodiversity, the environment, the population, it is that the work upstream has not been done.

It's just unbearable, ”concludes Loïc Prud'homme (LFI-Nupes), one of the deputies involved in this legal battle.

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