PARIS, July 22 (Reuters) – Environment Minister Monique Barbut stepped down on Wednesday in protest after French lawmakers approved a controversial farm bill allowing the temporary reintroduction of two pesticides accused of harming bees.
• “I told the Prime Minister yesterday that the conditions for me to stay in the government were no longer being met and I presented my resignation to the president today as a result,” Barbut wrote in a post published on LinkedIn.
• The most contested measure allows, by a waiver, the use of acetamiprid – part of the neonicotinoid group of pesticides – on hazelnuts and flupyradifurone on sugar beets, apples and cherries.
• Environmental campaigners and some unions representing small-scale farmers have said the bill benefits the large-scale agro industry and ignores scientific warnings about risks to pollinators, ecosystems and health, with Greenpeace denouncing the bill as “a disgrace”.
• The sugar industry has said the pesticides are needed to protect crops from aphids, which have ravaged beet harvests in previous years.
• A waiver wiil need to be approved by France’s health and safety agency, Anses, and cannot exceed three years.
• A petition against the bill last year gathered over two million signatures, a record for a petition on the website of France’s National Assembly.
• Last year, France’s constitutional court had blocked the re-introduction of acetamiprid over insufficient safeguards.
(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide and Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Susan Fenton and Makini Brice)
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