Rennes (AFP)

Can a mayor temporarily replace the state to protect the health of its inhabitants? The question was asked Thursday in Rennes before the justice by the mayor of Langouët (Ille-et-Vilaine), which banned the use of pesticides within 150 meters of homes.

"Mayor courage", "Mrs. the Prefect, Let our mayors protect us", "Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides ... whatever their name is for our lungs". Like the many banners, between 700 and more than 1,000 sympathizers, inhabitants of the region and members of environmental organizations (Waters and Rivers of Brittany, Acting for the environment etc) but also children of Leaukaterre, members of Extinction Rebellion, had come to support Daniel Cueff before the administrative court of Rennes.

The ecologist without label appeared to have taken, May 18, an order prohibiting the use of plant protection products "at a distance less than 150 meters from any cadastral parcel including a building for residential or professional use".

But the prefecture calls for its suspension in summary, on the grounds that a mayor is not competent to make decisions on the use of phytosanitary products, including in the name of the precautionary principle, a power reserved to the State.

"What is the power of a mayor, can a mayor ignore the health of its inhabitants?" Daniel Cueff told the judge, recalling that he did not ban pesticides, but introduced "a distance away from pesticides on a plot that remains cultivable with less dangerous products ".

On the legal side, he reminds that a European directive obliges states since 2009 to protect their inhabitants from the application of pesticides, and that the State Council partially canceled in June an order regulating the use of pesticides on the grounds that he did not protect the health of the residents sufficiently.

On the political front, the president called on the judge to preserve a decree that "goes in the direction of history", evoking an "unprecedented background movement" with an ultra-sensitized population and six-year-olds " at which glyphosate levels are 30 times higher than the threshold allowed in drinking water ".

- thunder of applause -

In addition to the incompetence of the mayor, state representatives argued that there were no "particular local circumstances and imminent peril" that would justify his decision, ensuring that the Egalim Act provides for the introduction of specific.

"For 15 years, the state says it will do but it does not.Will we have to go into the wall to wake up?", Retorted Mr. Arnaud Delomel, the mayor's lawyer.

The decision of the court will be known early next week.

Upon his release, Daniel Cueff was acclaimed by a thunderous applause. "We are at a tipping point, the state will be forced to side with the population," said Michel Besnard, president of the Western Pesticide Support Collective.

Among the historical supporters, Charlie Hebdo editors, whose call "We want poppies", launched in September 2018 for the ban of synthetic pesticides, has collected more than 800,000 signatures.

"Pesticides are not just when you go into a field, you suffer, you eat, you breathe in. We even find traces in the hair of products banned for decades," said Gérard Biard, editor-in-chief of the weekly.

"We walk on the head: when everyone recognizes that pesticides contaminate our bodies (?) The state defends the worst agricultural models," said Yannick Jadot, leader of EELV, on BFMTV and RMC .

Ronan Bourdon, father of a beekeeper from Langouët, supports Mr. Cueff "to 200%". "My son had 68% of bee deaths in 2018," he denounces.

About 20 mayors in France have taken to date decrees limiting or prohibiting pesticides in their municipality.

© 2019 AFP