Paris (AFP)

Two new substances acting as neonicotinoids will be banned in France to protect declining colonies of bees, said Tuesday Élisabeth Borne, Minister of Ecological Transition and Solidarity.

"Tomorrow (Wednesday), I will put in consultation a decree that will ban two new neonicotinoid substances, these substances that are known to disrupt bees," said the minister on BFMTV.

Five neonicotinoids (clothianidin, thiamethoxam, imidacloprid, thiacloprid and acetamiprid) had already been banned from all plant health use in September 2018.

The two new substances involved, "acting like neonicotinoids", are flupyradifurone and sulfoxaflor, the ministry told AFP. Two substances that, although they are authorized in France, are not currently available in products on the French market.

"This decree comes under the law EGAlim, which provided for the prohibition of substances with the same mode of action as neonicotinoids.Upon the current state of knowledge", two substances meet this definition: sulfoxaflor and flupyradifurone ", according to the ministry.

"The public consultation will last three weeks and this ban will come into force by the end of the year," the source said.

The neonicotinoids, which appeared in the 1990s and became the most widely used insecticides in the world, attack the nervous system of insects, and therefore pollinators. Even at low doses, bees and drones are disoriented, can not find their hive, the sperm of males is altered ...

For the Minister, this decision is complementary to the consultation launched this week by the government on the distances between homes and pesticide application areas to protect residents.

"We are protecting the inhabitants, this is the meaning of these distances, but we must act on the substance by reducing the use of pesticides, obviously accompanying farmers," she said.

© 2019 AFP