Anti-pesticide petition: An unprecedented grassroots movement

LeMonde

6 days ago

In just 10 days, a petition on the website of France's Assemblée Nationale, launched by a student who says she has no political affiliation, has garnered more than 1.5 million signatures. The record is striking: Never before had a grassroots initiative of this kind surpassed the 500,000-signature mark. The momentum behind it now appears to be so strong that no one can predict where it will stop. The petition calls for the "immediate repeal" of legislation known as the Duplomb Law, which was definitively adopted on July 8 and provides for rolling back a series of environmental measures. These include speeding up water storage projects, facilitating intensive livestock farming, and, above all, reintroducing certain pesticides, including acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid that has been banned in France since 2018, but still permitted in the European Union until 2033. After intense lobbying, beet and hazelnut producers convinced lawmakers to allow it to be reauthorized for use, arguing that it was their only way to not fall prey to competition from neighboring countries.
The unprecedentedly large grassroots movement making itself heard on environmental issues through the now-famous petition has caught everyone off guard. It comes as a contrast to the 2024 European elections, in which, in France and many other European Union countries, environmentalist parties lost ground while the far-right surged in the polls. The petition reveals not only a genuine surge in environmental awareness but also a determination to have an impact when public health is at stake.
Acetamiprid has been accused of harming pollinating insects, accumulating in soil and groundwater and posing risks to human health. The petition's many signatories easily identified with its wording, condemning what it described as a "scientific, ethical, environmental and public health aberration." The influence of the FNSEA farming union, which staunchly defends intensive agriculture practices, has undoubtedly also been targeted by the movement. Before becoming a senator (from the right-wing Les Républicains party, LR), Laurent Duplomb, the legislation's author, was the president of a farmers' representative body in central France.
Democratically speaking, the grassroots movement's success is significant. Its first effect has been to highlight the French Parliament's recent shortcomings. By surpassing 500,000 signatures, the petitioners have secured the possibility that a public debate on the law could be held when Parliament reconvenes, after the Assemblée, far too divided, failed to hold such a debate when the bill was being examined in late May. A maneuver by the bill's rapporteur, Julien Dive (LR), to initially reject the bill as a way to circumvent obstruction tactics from the left, resulted in the debate being held behind closed doors, conducted in a joint committee composed of seven members of each chamber. While the process was legal, it has proven unsatisfactory. Given the stakes raised by the bill, it was imperative that both sides be able to openly express their positions on it.
The petition's second effect has been to put the entire political class on edge. Riding this newfound surge of momentum, the left has vowed to scrap the Duplomb law. However, aside from waiting for the Constitutional Council to decide on the matter, it has fewer options at its disposal than the president, who can request that a new deliberation on the law be held or even hold back on promulgating it, if the public outcry grows further. The petitioners likely did not intend to bring Emmanuel Macron back into the center of the public debate, but the implacable logic of the Fifth Republic has led to just that.