He was the first mayor to have a decree prohibiting pesticides on its territory, resulting in several other ediles following him. On Friday, Daniel Cueff's lawyer, the mayor of Langouët, in Ille-et-Vilaine, announced that the administrative court of Rennes had chosen to cancel the decree. "The administrative court of Rennes retains that a mayor does not have the power to make an order on the regulation of pesticides.The argument of the court goes no further because it stops at the competence of the mayor ", said Arnaud Delomel told AFP. For the lawyer, "this is a blow because it is the first judgment that is made on the merits on the national level".
The mayor of Langouët regrets "an incredible poverty in the argument"
Asked by AFP, Daniel Cueff said "obviously disappointed" with this decision "because it is public health." For him, "the judgment of the tribunal is of a poverty in the argument that is incredible and does not take into account what we could bring as evidence, in particular the fact that the authorization of placing on the market of pesticides synthesis, in the opinion of ANSES itself, has never been the subject of analyzes of the consequences for local residents. " The commune of Langouët has two months to appeal this decision.
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This decree was taken on May 18 in this village of 600 inhabitants near Rennes. It prohibits the use of plant protection products "at a distance of less than 150 meters from any cadastral parcel including a residential or professional building". A large debate followed in France on the use of pesticides and several dozen municipalities subsequently took similar orders, including Paris and Lille.
A question of competence
At the substantive hearing held on 14 October, the public rapporteur called for the annulment of the decree and recalled the difference between legality and legitimacy. "Is this decree legal, is it in conformity with the positive law, the right it is written?" Madame Touret had sent to the president and his two advisers.
According to her, the police powers of a mayor can not apply on the subject of a ban on phytosanitary products. In addition, the state is not responsible for a "proven deficiency", she said emphasizing the absence of "imminent danger".