the Minister of Agriculture assumes his desire to reverse the ban on a herbicide, in the name of “food sovereignty”

He persists and signs. The Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, wrote a column, published on Saturday April 1 on Twitter, in which he explains his desire to reconsider the procedure for banning the herbicide S-metolachlor, which has drawn strong criticism. . In this text, he assumes his choice in the name of the “food sovereignty”. It also calls for “put the debate right” and to “change method to move forward”regretting being exposed to “the caricature”, “as if the greatest challenge of our time, the fight against climate change and the essential ecological transition, could only be conceived as a pitched battle”.

Recalling that Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced a “strategic action plan to anticipate the withdrawal of potentially problematic active substances” having to reconcile food sovereignty and ecological transition, he believes that this planning should not “not introduce a distortion of competition with our European neighbours”.

“Synchronization and consistency needed”

In his text, Marc Fesneau assures that the expertise or role of ANSES “have never been questioned” and justifies his position by “the necessary synchronization and consistency” with the European calendar, without commenting on the health risks associated with this herbicide. In a letter to ANSES which he also made public on Twitter, the Minister explains that a ban decision from the European Commission may not take place before November 2024, i.e. “up to two years after the end of use at the French level”judging such a discrepancy “difficult to understand”.

Thursday, before the congress of the majority agricultural union, the FNSEA, the minister announced that he had asked the French Agency for Health Security (Anses) to reconsider its desire to ban the main uses of S-metolachlor. ANSES, mandated to assess and authorize or not pesticides, announced on February 15 that it was initiating a withdrawal procedure concerning this agricultural herbicide widely used in France on corn, soybeans and sunflowers, and whose chemical derivatives have been detected. above the permitted limits in groundwater, and therefore potentially in drinking water.

The NGO Générations Futures immediately denounced a “public health and environmental protection scandal” while the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has classified this herbicide as “suspected carcinogen” in June. Several elected socialists and environmentalists have deplored an attack on the independence of ANSES. MEP (Renaissance) Pascal Canfin, quoted by The worldstressed that science was “now very clear about this herbicide” and the priority was “to work on alternatives for farmers, not to wage battles of the past”.