Nine municipalities in Île-de-France took an anti-pesticide decree on Tuesday.
At the end of 2020, the Council of State had ruled: the regulation on the use of pesticides is not the responsibility of town halls.
The elected officials have therefore chosen to consider pesticides as waste in order to recover this competence.
Nine municipalities in Île-de-France are fighting against pesticides again.
Arcueil, Bagneux, Gennevilliers, Île-Saint-Denis, Malakoff, Montfermeil, Nanterre, Savigny-le-Temple and Sceaux issued a decree on Tuesday banning phytosanitary products and pesticides in their towns.
This time, they have chosen to adopt another strategy so as not to be attacked by the Council of State.
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For Florence Presson, first deputy at the town hall of Sceaux and vice-president of the collective of anti-pesticide mayors, what counts is first of all to "reaffirm that no pesticide can be sprayed in our municipalities".
These town halls therefore chose to bypass the decision of December 31, 2020. A decision according to which the town halls were incompetent to regulate the use of pesticides in their municipalities.
Consider pesticides as waste
These municipalities therefore began to consider pesticides as waste, the treatment of the latter being the responsibility of the mayor.
"We have the obligation to manage our waste, not to leave it on the bottom of the road. It is not us who say it", launches Florence Presson.
Before adding: "Pesticides emit a lot of waste. For us, we are indeed in our right".
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To have more weight, elected officials are based on a decision of the European Commission of May 3, 2000 on hazardous waste.
According to the first deputy, the European body speaks well of "organic pesticides as hazardous waste so it is indeed waste as such".
The town halls then started from the principle that they "do not have the assurance of being able to manage this waste", concludes Florence Presson.
The legal fight has only just begun.