Paris (France) (AFP) – France on Tuesday backed a controversial bill reintroducing two pesticides critics say harm bees, as the environment minister said she would resign.
“In my mind, I have no other option than to present my resignation,” Monique Barbut told aides, adding she intended to submit it to President Emmanuel Macron by early Wednesday.
Proponents say French sugar beet, apple and hazelnut farmers need the insecticides – forbidden in France since 2018 and 2019 respectively – to help them compete with their European counterparts. The pesticides, acetamiprid and flupyradifurone, are allowed in the European Union.
Opponents argue they are dangerous to bees and human health.
On Tuesday evening, the right-leaning Senate backed the bill by 214 votes to 111. The National Assembly approved the legislation early Tuesday.
“Let us be proud of the work accomplished,” said senator Laurent Duplomb.
The vote came after the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest court, last year struck down a provision in another bill trying to reintroduce acetamiprid, saying it posed risks to human health, after more than two million people signed a petition against it.
That bill was championed by Duplomb.
“The government and its allies are trampling on science, health, the environment, and the will of the people,” said Greenpeace after the National Assembly passed the bill.
Henri Clement, of the French Beekeeping Union, told regional media outlet Ici Gard Lozere the measure was “absolutely catastrophic”.
Research has found acetamiprid can poison honeybees, affecting their foraging capacity and memory, while a 2024 study suggested flupyradifurone could be lethal to some bees.
Most leftists in the lower house this week voted against the reintroduction of the two pesticides, but backing from the far right and many centrists meant it passed.
The left has said it would appeal to the Constitutional Council if the Senate approved the measure.
Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard has defended the bill as necessary to address discontent among farmers after protests this winter.
She has stressed health authorities would only approve use of the pesticides in certain areas for limited periods “on the condition there is no impact on human health or on the environment, there is an emergency situation” and “there is no alternative”.
deleted by creator
Someone explain to me the logic of a person quitting their role when something like this is forced through. I get the optics of it but it just incentivizes someone who’s OK with what’s happened to replace them and make it worse until you pass a bridge too far for them, and they quit, where they then get replaced by someone even worse. That’s seems to be how it works nowadays.
There’s no point being in the role if you are not being listened to, so she’s sacrificed her job to make a point. It’s also soul crushing to be ridden over roughshod like that, so she’s registered her disgust at that too. In many workplaces you’d probably have a case for “constructive dismissal” too.
You’re right that it leaves the position open for someone who’s ok with it, but given that her position on an environmental issue was ignored, even though she is the environment minister, and that the vote wasn’t even close, it wont change matters much.
Canada’s environment minister did the same thing. Carney undid a decade of work so Steven Guilbeault quit rather than sit in a fake role.
Maybe they’re burnt out and the last they’ve got in them is to make their resignation a statement
People, particularly those in management and upper level positions, are concerned about their career prospects which eclipse any one employer. If you have a temper, like most people do, when your boss makes you angry, particularly in a long-term sense of violation of your basic values, it becomes increasingly difficult to remain reasonable with such people. People quit in part because they’re afraid of what they might do if they remain, quitting is the preferable course of action as they desire to have “Resigned” on their employer’s workplace history and references instead of “Can’t control their temper”.
Yeah I guess it’s a tragedy of the commons since each person quitting is making the rational choice for themselves, at the expense of the entire institution and society as a whole.
Quitting in protest is how ACAB works. All the good cops leave or turn into bastards themselves through complicity. Quitting just opens the role for a new political bastard to help capture an institution even more…
This is really because the USA leaned on them.
I was wondering if France should have instead instituted Trumpian tariffs to protect their farmers.
Proponents say French sugar beet, apple and hazelnut farmers need the insecticides – forbidden in France since 2018 and 2019 respectively – to help them compete with their European counterparts. The pesticides, acetamiprid and flupyradifurone, are allowed in the European Union.
