The cancer patient who inspired French movement to block reintroduction of pesticide

The Guardian

a day ago

On the day French MPs gave themselves a round of applause for approving legislation to reintroduce a banned pesticide last month, a figure rose from the public gallery to shout: 'You are supporters of cancer … and we will make it known.'
Fleur Breteau made it known. Her outburst and appearance – she lost her hair during chemotherapy for breast cancer – bolstered a petition against the 'Duplomb law' to well over 2m signatures.
On Thursday, France's constitutional court struck down the government's attempt to reintroduce the pesticide acetamiprid – a neonicotinoid banned in France in 2018 but still used as an insecticide in other EU countries as well as the UK – in a judgment that took everyone by surprise. The ruling said the legislature had undermined 'the right to live in a balanced and healthy environment' enshrined in France's environmental charter.
For Breteau, 50, a battle is won but the struggle goes on. 'The law is a symptom of a sick system that poisons us. The Duplomb law isn't the real problem. It's aggravating an already catastrophic system,' she said.
'We are living in a toxic world and need a revolution to break the chain of contamination in everything … If people don't react we'll find ourselves in a world where we cannot drink water or eat food that is uncontaminated, where a slice of buttered bread, or a cup of tea, poisons us. It will be a silent world, without animals, without insects, without birds.
'We are accused of politicising cancer, of weaponising the disease. Yes, that is exactly what we're doing because that is what's necessary.'
In an interview with the Guardian between radiotherapy treatments, hours before the court's decision, Breteau explained the 'injustice and anger' she felt on learning the government planned to reintroduce the pesticide and how it prompted her to create the Cancer Colère (Cancer Anger) collective.
She was in hospital for treatment for the second bout of cancer in three years when the bill was approved by the Assemblée national's upper house , the Sénat.
'I was having chemotherapy and it was really hard. I thought this law would never pass, that it would be impossible. When I learned senators had voted for it, I was filled with an intense anger,' Breteau said. 'And the more I looked at the figures for cancer cases, the angrier I became.'
In March, the national health body Santé publique France published the latest cancer figures that showed cases had doubled since 1990, while use of tobacco and alcohol, often blamed for the disease, had declined by 25% in the same period. It noted an alarming rise in cancers in children and those aged 15-39. Doctors and researchers responded with an open letter to Le Monde, reporting there was a cancer epidemic.
'All the arguments they've given us – blaming individuals for habits like smoking and drinking or that the population is ageing – don't hold water,' Breteau said.
'We know where there are lots of pesticides used, there are clusters of child cancers, so we can no longer doubt there is a link. Scientists have known this for years, but like the tobacco manufacturers, the agriculture lobbies know how to create doubt. They want us to prove the cancer of this or that person is directly linked to this or that pesticide.'
Acetamiprid wipes out 'sucking' insects on vegetable, citrus fruit and grape crops. First introduced in the early 1990s, its use is permitted in the UK where it is labelled 'highly hazardous'.
The potential effect of the neonicotinoid on humans is also a source of concern, though the risks remains unclear in the absence of large-scale studies. Research on bees is inconclusive and controversial: it has been argued that acetamiprid is less toxic to the environment and insects than other insecticides. Others claim it is responsible for the collapse of bee colonies.
Philippe Grandcolas, a deputy director at the CNRS, France's national scientific research body, said: 'What the studies have shown is that acetamiprid is the 'least toxic, least harmful' of the neonicotinoids, but it's like choosing between the plague and cholera.'
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On Friday, the French health minister Yannick Neuder pressed for a Europe-wide evaluation of the impact of acetamiprid on human health. 'I am calling for a prompt, careful and transparent reassessment by European health authorities of the health impact of acetamiprid,' he told France Inter radio. Neuder said studies into its potential endocrine-disrupting or neurotoxic properties were 'ongoing'.
One of its manufacturers, the Chinese agrochemical firm Shijiazhuang Pomais Technology, has said acetamiprid has 'low toxicity to humans and animals … it has low toxicity to fish, has little impact on bees and is highly safe.'
Breteau has told French journalists she felt like she was 90 years old, but she looked surprisingly healthy when the Guardian met her in a community park before she had to head across town to the Gustave Roussy hospital for her last radiotherapy session. The oncology hospital is said to be Europe's top cancer treatment centre and is ranked one of the world's best.
Wearing a crossbody bag high over her chest, Breteau moved it aside to tap where her right breast was.
'The first cancer was in the left. This one was in the right. The tumour was abnormal and developing far too quickly, but that was not the problem. In August last year, I lost one of my best friends to brain cancer that spread and it's several years now that members of my family and friends have had cancers,' she said.
Breteau said that while in hospital she was shocked to come across toddlers, teenagers and pregnant mothers in the cancer wards.
'I thought I'd be the youngest. I spoke to my parents, and those of their generation and they told me, we didn't have that at your age. When we were 40, we didn't have friends who died of brain cancer.'
Breteau said Cancer Colère had gone from a handful of activists – mostly those who have or had the disease – to about 600 supporters in a matter of weeks. The collective has rejected affiliation to any political party and has learned from the gilets jaunes movement that demonstrating does not work. In September, Cancer Colère will begin a leafleting campaign outside hospitals that points out the dangers of pesticides.
'There are solutions, farmers who use healthy agricultural methods, who respect animals and nature. We must listen to them and scientists, but we have to confront politicians and industrialists … Ordinary people are deeply angry and becoming more so. We're thinking how we become a force,' Breteau said.