It is a victory for environmental associations.

The Constitutional Council ruled on Friday March 19 that the method of drawing up local charters which make it possible to reduce the safety distances between homes and areas where pesticides are applied is contrary to the Constitution.

These charters drawn up at the departmental level "after consultation with the people, or their representatives" living near the areas concerned, do not comply with the rules of the Environmental Charter included in the preamble of the Constitution, which provides for a general consultation of the public for any decision that may have a significant impact on the environment, considers the Board.

The Council of State seized in 2020

After several months of controversy, the government had finally set, in December 2019, the minimum distances to be respected between the areas where plant protection products were spread and homes: five meters for so-called low crops such as vegetables and cereals and ten meters for tall crops, fruit trees or vines.

But the decree also provided for exemptions reducing these distances to three meters for tall crops and five for low ones, within the framework of "departmental commitment charters" proposed by users of phytosanitary products and validated by the prefects after having been submitted. with public consultation.

Charters which provide in particular that the farmer uses equipment limiting drift, that is to say the deposit outside the treated areas.

Many environmental associations, including Générations Futures and France Nature Environnement, seized the Council of State in 2020, denouncing charters that did not sufficiently protect local residents.

VICTORY ✌️: The “charters of commitments”, which regulate the use of #pesticides near homes, deemed “contrary to the Constitution”.

https://t.co/yU0bTpits4 Read our CP @genefutures @FNEasso @UFCquechoisir @Eauetrivieres @AMLPesticides @UnionSolidaires @CPesticides pic.twitter.com/cPBowWM5QM

- Generations Futures (@genefutures) March 19, 2021

On January 4, the Council of State finally referred to the Constitutional Council a "priority question of constitutionality" on this subject.

It is the method of drawing up these charters that the Constitutional Council invalidated on Friday.

Protection of local residents

"The contested provisions are limited to indicating that the consultation takes place at the departmental level, without defining any other of the conditions and limits under which the right of public participation in the development of the charters of commitments is exercised", writes he in his decision. 

"On the other hand, allowing the consultation to be held only with representatives of people living near areas likely to be treated with plant protection products does not meet the requirements for the participation of ' any person 'imposed by Article 7 of the Environmental Charter, "he continues.

Therefore, these provisions "must be declared contrary to the Constitution".

This is a new twist in a case that has been controversial for several years.

In June 2019, the Council of State had already ruled that a 2017 decree regulating the use of plant protection products did not sufficiently protect the health of residents or the environment, forcing the State to review its copy.

Hence the new measures taken at the end of 2019 in a context of rebellion of mayors and local authorities who had multiplied the orders limiting or prohibiting the use of pesticides on their territory.

In this part of the story, the Council of State definitively ruled at the end of 2020 that the mayors did not have the power to issue such banning orders, the regulation of contested products falling under the prerogatives of the State.

With AFP

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