The Administrative Court of Cergy-Pontoise on Friday rejected the request for suspension of two anti-pesticide orders taken by the town halls of Gennevilliers and Sceaux, in the name of "serious danger to the populations exposed" to these products. This is a "national first" have welcomed the town halls involved. After this interim decision (urgency), the orders taken in the spring by these two communes of the Hauts-de-Seine must be examined on the merits.
"It can not be seriously disputed that the products whose use is prohibited by the decree in dispute (...) constitute a serious danger to the exposed populations," reads the court order. While decisions on the use of plant protection products are the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, the mayor was "right" to derogate from them and take the order, according to the decision.
This decision "allows to make jurisprudence"
This is a "first" in France, welcomed the mayor of Gennevilliers, Patrice Leclerc. "This is an encouragement for those who are fighting for the health of farmers and the population," he said, adding that "the fight is not over." Welcoming this decision, Florence Presson, deputy mayor of Sceaux, said that this decision "allows to make jurisprudence, it means that all cities that have taken these orders will benefit".
On October 25, the administrative court of Rennes announced the cancellation of the decree of May 18 taken by the mayor of Langouët, which prohibited the use of synthetic pesticides within 150 m of the houses of this Breton town. To justify his decision, the judge recalled that the "Minister of Agriculture is responsible for the administrative police plant protection products" and that "the mayor of a municipality can not in any way interfere in the exercise of this special police by the enactment of a local regulation ". The decree of the Breton mayor has launched a vast debate on the use of pesticides near homes. 104 communes, according to the Ragster association which supports them, have taken similar orders, including Paris, Nantes and Lille.