Beekeepers and environmentalists in France have reacted furiously after parliament approved a bill reauthorising two banned pesticides scientists say can poison bees.
“There are no words to describe the frustration,” said Carolyn Bouguet, a beekeeper in Essonne, greater Paris. “Bee populations have already been badly compromised by climate change, new parasites and loss of habitat. And now this.”
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 ۳۰ years. It’s scandalous, irrational and irresponsible.”
The law, passed on Tuesday, allows France’s food and environmental safety agency, Anses, to grant waivers authorising the use of the pesticides acetamiprid and flupyradifurone in struggling farm sectors and under exceptional circumstances.
The use of the pesticides, allowed in the EU but banned in France, will be authorised to combat aphid-borne diseases that can ruin crops of sugar beet, apples, hazelnuts and cherries, which has led producers to claim they can no longer compete with European rivals.
Scientific studies have established that acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid with powerful neurotoxic effects, can poison bees, affecting their foraging capacity and memory. A ۲۰۲۴ study suggested flupyradifurone could be lethal to some honeybees.
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”.
France’s environment minister, Monique Barbut, said the legislation was “one environmental setback too many” and submitted her resignation on Wednesday, but was later persuaded to stay on after meeting President Emmanuel Macron.
However, France’s largest farmers’ union, the FNSEA, welcomed the bill’s approval as “a major milestone and a victory for French farmers”, while the agriculture minister, Annie Genevard, said it brought “real and tangible solutions” to growers.
According to agriculture ministry figures, honey production in France halved between the mid-۱۹۹۰s, when neonicotinoids were introduced, and the mid-۲۰۱۰s, although habitat loss and climate breakdown were also contributing factors.
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.
“Bees are the canary in the environmental coalmine,” she said. “Their health is a huge indicator of what’s happening in the natural world. Protecting bees means protecting life. Protecting life means protecting our future.”
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?”
Yves Delaunay, a beekeeper from the western Vendée department, said that after neonicotinoids were introduced in the ۱۹۹۰s, his honey production “went from ۸۰kg per hive to ۵kg” and the colonies “collapsed”.
“In just a few days, we went from ۷۰,۰۰۰ bees to ۲۰,۰۰۰,” he told local media. “They were disoriented, unable to return to the hive. We found them dead everywhere. It was a huge loss.”
The senate backed the bill by ۲۱۴ votes to ۱۱۱ on Tuesday after it received lower house approval. 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.
The French parliament last year passed a bill reauthorising acetamiprid despite a petition against it that gathered more than ۲m signatures. That bill was annulled by the constitutional council, which said it did not abide by France’s environmental charter.
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 said she was resigning because “the forces opposing these goals have become so powerful that I can no longer carry this ambition through”, but reversed her decision after Macron gave her “guarantees” on climate action goals.
Genevard, the agriculture minister, has said 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 beekeeping union , environmental groups and left-leaning members of parliament have said they will refer the new law to the constitutional council on the grounds that its fails to provide adequate safeguards for human health and the environment.
