"The Constitutional Council must censor the Duplomb law in the name of the precautionary principle"

The Duplomb Law is a law that is not going to pass. It is not going to pass for the French people who are victims of pesticide-induced illnesses, whose anger is legitimate. It is not going to pass for the scientists who, noting the devastating effects of pesticides on living things, have alerted parliamentarians to the foreseeable consequences of this law. It is not going to pass for many farmers, who know full well that the destruction of pollinating insects will affect the majority of them, and that they, along with their families and children, will be the first victims of pesticides. It is not going to pass for the more than two million French citizens who signed the petition calling for its repeal. And it is not going to pass for us either, learned medical or scientific societies, patient associations, who cannot bring ourselves to accept a law that is dangerous for the health of our fellow citizens.

How can we understand the vote of a majority of parliamentarians in favor of this law? It might be tempting to evoke political strategies aimed at securing the support of powerful opinion leaders like the National Federation of Farmers' Unions (FNSEA), but we would have to admit an inconceivable political cynicism when public health is at stake. Another explanation seems more plausible: that of ignorance.

Among the 53 personalities heard by the Senate committee preparing the text, there are representatives of agricultural unions, the pesticide lobby, certain State agencies (including the National Agency for Food Safety ) or public scientific or technological establishments (including the National Institute for Research on Agriculture, Food and the Environment), and environmental protection associations.

But there are no doctors, toxicologists, or epidemiologists. There are no representatives from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), the CNRS, the Ministry of Health or Labor (pesticides are recognized factors in occupational diseases), and no representatives from the National Health Insurance Fund or the Mutualité Sociale Agricole (Agricultural Social Security Fund).

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