France: Senate puts pesticide lobby on notice for lack of probity

Pesticide sprinkling in a French agricultural field, in 2017. © AFP - PHILIPPE HUGUEN

Text by: Lucile Gimberg Follow

2 min

The president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, points to the lobby of the main pesticide manufacturers. Phyteis, who works for agrochemical giants, has failed in its "duty of probity", said the Upper House on May 3. The lobby group is accused of having overestimated the job losses that would result from the French ban on exporting certain pesticides outside the European Union. This formal notice is a first in France.

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It all began at the end of 2018, when the France decided to ban the production, storage and circulation, on its territory, of certain pesticides banned in the European Union. With this new rule, these chemicals can no longer be exported to countries outside the EU.

Manufacturers have until the law comes into force, on January 1, 2022, to adapt. But the pressure machine engages right away. In early 2019, the Phyteis lobby – which represents the main pesticide manufacturers Syngenta, BASF, Bayer – convinced several senators, including socialists Didier Marie and Yves Daudigny, to table amendments that brought down the ban. The argument of the pressure group: 2,700 jobs would be threatened in 19 factories in France, located in particular in the constituencies of the socialist senators.

Except that these figures have been largely overestimated, shows a journalistic investigation, taken up in February 2023 by Mediapart. A year after the entry into force, either the factories were not concerned by the products now banned for export, or they have adapted without consequence on their payroll, demonstrates the Norman media Le Octopus.

Four NGOs and an ecologist senator, Joël Labbé, denounced "job blackmail" and reported the facts to the Senate ethics committee. At the microphone of RFI, the elected Breton, who filed the report, says he is scandalized "that we export, to the South, products banned in Europe for their dangerousness".

In the Senate, the ethics committee conducts its investigation. In this regard, an internal source points out that "Phyteis has never revealed how much of its production was actually affected". The firm has especially waved the red rag of relocations.

📢 The Speaker of the Senate @gerard_larcher gave formal notice to a representative of interests, @Phyteis, for failing in his duty of probity.

This is the first time that this procedure has been implemented in Parliament since its creation by the "Sapin II" law in 2016. pic.twitter.com/uu0EPC9dM8

— Senate (@Senat) May 3, 2023

Contacted by RFI, the lobby takes note of this call to order of the Senate, but maintains that its census was "as objective as possible". The National Assembly and the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life are also expected to vote on this issue in the coming weeks.

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  • France
  • French politics
  • Environment
  • Agriculture and Fisheries
  • Employment and Labour