France's parliament approved legislation this week allowing the use of two pesticides banned domestically but permitted across the EU, after struggling farm sectors warned they can no longer compete with European rivals. The senate backed the bill by 214 votes to 111 on Tuesday, authorising France's food and environmental safety agency, Anses, to grant waivers for acetamiprid and flupyradifurone under exceptional circumstances.
The move allows growers of sugar beet, apples, hazelnuts and cherries to combat aphid-borne diseases that can ruin crops. France's largest farmers' union, the FNSEA, welcomed the bill's approval as "a major milestone and a victory for French farmers". Agriculture minister Annie Genevard said it brought "real and tangible solutions" to growers, adding that the health agency would only allow the pesticides' use in certain areas for limited periods and when there was "no impact on human health or the environment, an emergency situation … and no alternative".
The Competitiveness Question
Producers have said they can no longer compete with European rivals who are permitted to use the pesticides. The legislation reflects a growing tension in French agriculture: maintaining strict environmental standards while preventing domestic growers from being undercut by competitors operating under looser EU-wide rules. The proposal to authorise the two pesticides was included in the bill late in the legislative process to help ensure it cleared the right-leaning upper house.
France's environment minister, Monique Barbut, submitted her resignation on Wednesday in protest but was later persuaded to stay on after meeting President Emmanuel Macron. Barbut, who previously headed the conservation charity WWF France, said after the vote that she had sought to defend "the silence of our forests, the quality of our water, the purity of our air, the richness of our soils and the diversity of life". She reversed her decision after Macron gave her "guarantees" on climate action goals.
The Science and the Backlash
Scientific studies have established that acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid with powerful neurotoxic effects, can poison bees, affecting their foraging capacity and memory. A 2024 study suggested flupyradifurone could be lethal to some honeybees. According to agriculture ministry figures, honey production in France halved between the mid-1990s, when neonicotinoids were introduced, and the mid-2010s, although habitat loss and climate breakdown were also contributing factors.
Henri Clément, a beekeeper in the southern Lozère department and spokesperson for the French beekeeping association, UNAF, said the measure was "an absolute disaster for our sector, and for biodiversity as a whole". For bees, the risk was "very high mortality rates and reduced harvests", Clément told local media. "It's just incomprehensible these pesticides have been reauthorised. We've been fighting them for 30 years. It's scandalous, irrational and irresponsible."
Carolyn Bouguet, a beekeeper in Essonne, greater Paris, said: "There are no words to describe the frustration. Bee populations have already been badly compromised by climate change, new parasites and loss of habitat. And now this." Bouguet said France had been "a model" for other countries when it banned neonicotinoids. Scientific research showed the pesticides harmed not just insects but soil ecosystems, and could have an impact on human health, she noted.
Yves Delaunay, a beekeeper from the western Vendée department, said that after neonicotinoids were introduced in the 1990s, his honey production "went from 80kg per hive to 5kg" and the colonies "collapsed". "In just a few days, we went from 70,000 bees to 20,000," he told local media. "They were disoriented, unable to return to the hive. We found them dead everywhere. It was a huge loss."
Legal Challenge Ahead
The French parliament last year passed a bill reauthorising acetamiprid despite a petition against it that gathered more than 2m signatures. That bill was annulled by the constitutional council, which said it didn't abide by France's environmental charter. The beekeeping union, environmental groups and left-leaning members of parliament have said they'll refer the new law to the constitutional council on the grounds that it fails to provide adequate safeguards for human health and the environment.
Greenpeace France said the country's centrist government and its rightwing allies in parliament were "trampling on science, health, the environment and the clear will of the people", describing the legislation as "deeply concerning" and "a disgrace". Christian Pons, the UNAF president, told reporters the law "claims to defend French food sovereignty, but since when is it acceptable to destroy one sector – that of beekeepers – in order to save another, for example that of hazelnut trees?"
Why This Matters:
France's decision to lift its domestic pesticide ban exposes a fundamental problem with EU agricultural policy: member states that impose stricter environmental rules than Brussels requires risk pricing their own farmers out of the single market. French growers face a choice between maintaining higher standards and watching competitors capture market share, or aligning downward with the EU baseline. The beekeeping sector's collapse — honey production halved over roughly 20 years — illustrates the real cost of chemical-intensive agriculture, but the competitive pressure from other EU states has forced Paris to choose between two domestic industries. The constitutional council may yet strike down the law, but the underlying policy dilemma won't disappear: Europe's single market creates a race to the regulatory bottom when environmental standards aren't harmonised upward. French farmers need a level playing field, but that means either Brussels raises standards across the bloc or member states accept that stricter national rules come with economic consequences.