The Senate, July 16, 2020. -

Jacques Witt / SIPA

The right-wing majority Senate gave its approval on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday to the bill allowing the temporary reintroduction of bee-killing neonicotinoids to save the beet industry, at the end of a sometimes tense debate with the left and after a voting incident.

It was adopted at first reading with 184 votes in favor, 128 against and 28 abstentions.

Within the senatorial majority, 12 LR senators voted against, as did eight centrists and one Independents.

Ten LR, ten centrists and three Independents abstained.

In the majority RDPI group En Marche, Xavier Iacovelli voted against and 5 elected representatives abstained.

Voted against the PS groups (with the exception of Jean-Pierre Sueur who voted for), RDSE with a radical majority, CRCE with a communist and environmentalist majority.

Just before the vote on the whole text, the Senate had to vote again on Article 1, the heart of the bill, which had been deleted with one vote, after a handling error by the centrist group during the electronic ballot on deleting amendments presented by the left.

The article was thus reinstated, by a show of hands this time.

Heated debate in the Senate

Agricultural and industrial "emergency" for some, "environmental regression" for others: strong positions have been asserted on this controversial bill.

It authorizes, by way of derogation, sugar beet producers to use seeds treated with pesticides of the neonicotinoid family until 2023, banned since 2018. The exemptions are explicitly limited to sugar beet.

The bill provides for the creation of a supervisory board to give an opinion on exemptions, as well as the prohibition, on plots where neonicotinoids have been used, to plant crops that attract bees so as not to exhibit.

The exemptions should be effective by December at the latest, to allow time for manufacturers to produce the seeds needed for sowing in March.

The cause is a green aphid which transmits jaundice to beets, a disease that weakens the plant, leading to a significant loss of yield.

The senators brought forward the entry into force of the law until December 15, with the consent of the Minister of Agriculture Julien Denormandie.

"Yes, the French sugar beet industry is in danger today", said the minister, for whom "it is not a question of opposing ecology and economy, it is a question of sovereignty".

In total, the sector represents nearly 46,000 jobs, direct and indirect.

For the rapporteur, "two political visions of ecology" are opposed, an "ecology of mistrust choosing to prohibit" and an "ecology of trust [...] which is based on the reality of our territories, on progress and on research ”.

The exchanges became tense when the president of the environmental group Guillaume Gontard denounced "a huge victory for the agrochemical lobby, the Bayer-Monsanto Trojan horse", accusing the government of "dealing a violent blow to all the world's biodiversity".

"I found your comments absolutely scandalous," responded Julien Denormandie, criticizing "an ecology of defamation".

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  • Senate

  • Bees

  • Agriculture

  • Environment

  • Pesticides