“We are facing systemic pollution” and “this is only the beginning”, warns Green MP Nicolas Thierry

“The ‘eternal pollutants’ are a family of 12,000 substances, and we haven’t even identified them all yet,” the Green MP said on France Bleu Gironde on Thursday. The elected official is calling for strong action from the State.

Four out of ten tap water samples taken in France contain “eternal pollutants”, PFAs, at sometimes worrying levels, according to the investigation by local radio stations France Bleu and the Radio France Investigation Unit published on Thursday, September 19. “It’s not surprising at all. As soon as you start looking for them, you find them, and that’s just the beginning.”warns Nicolas Thierry, Ecologist MP for the 2nd constituency of Gironde, who has tabled a bill to ban PFAS in cosmetics and clothing. He was a guest on France Bleu Gironde on Thursday.

“We are faced with systemic pollution, describes the chosen one. It’s a scandal that exploded in the United States 25 years ago now, it was hardly talked about in Europe and France, so it’s not surprising at all. As soon as you start looking for it, you find it, and this is only the beginning.”

The Pfas are present “Almost everywhere in everyday objects, they were developed by manufacturers from the 1940s, because they allow objects to be waterproof, stain-resistant, non-stick… Gradually they found themselves almost everywhere”he continues. But once in our bodies or in the environment, “we can’t get rid of it”. This can cause “the emergence of a certain number of pathologies such as infertility, cholesterol or certain types of cancer. The ‘eternal pollutants’ are a family of 12,000 substances, and we haven’t even identified them all yet,” Nicolas Thierry reminds us. Environmental decontamination is possible, but it is very expensive.

A new standard of 100 nanograms per litre will be imposed by Europe from 2026. It has “the merit of existing”, but she is “very unambitious”judges the deputy. On the analyses carried out in Bordeaux for example, the water remains drinkable, but “We must be aware that it is in the long term that there can be effects.”

“We will have to invest in water decontamination and, above all, stop emitting PFAs into the environment.”

Nicolas Thierry, Green MP for Gironde

on France Bleu Gironde

Last April, a law brought by the Green MP was passed in the National Assembly and then in the Senate, to ban the use of PFAs in clothing and cosmetics, but not on pots and pans. It must pass one last time in the National Assembly to be adopted. “Originally, we had proposed banning ‘eternal pollutants’, particularly in kitchen utensils,” says the elected official. “There was extremely crude lobbying, particularly from Seb. Seb’s management paid employees for a day to travel to demonstrate and prevent kitchen utensils from being affected by this proposed law.”he denounces.

However, this text would allow France to be “the country with the most ambitious regulations”This particularly concerns cosmetics, “an extremely important issue, particularly with young girls who today are putting on make-up earlier and earlier, often in the middle of puberty, describes Nicolas Thierry. We know that these are endocrine disruptors”.

The MP also hopes that this law will allow the implementation “a polluter-payer tax, to make industrialists pay who release PFAs into the environment. That would be a big step forward”The Green MP concludes: “Civil society has taken hold of it, there is enormous citizen pressure, the State must now take the issue head on and there must be more transparency”.