The Ecophyto plan, supposed to initiate a gradual reduction in pesticides and which the government announced was being put on hold on Thursday, will be reviewed within three weeks, promised the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu, while associations and elected officials are worried about ecological decline.
“We did not announce that we were authorizing a molecule, or that we were going to modify the rules on the proximity of local residents and on the catchment areas which allow the supply of drinking water
,” he said. putting things into perspective in an interview with the newspaper
La Tribune Dimanche
, ensuring despite everything that he understands
the “concern”
.
“Health and the protection of biodiversity are red lines,”
he recalled, while Gabriel Attal announced Thursday the pausing of the program supposed to halve the use of pesticides by 2030 (by compared to 2015-2017).
“We simply said that we needed three weeks – until the Agricultural Show – to re-discuss the tools which will be deployed this year”
, summarized Christophe Béchu, rather discreet throughout the crisis which shook the world agriculture over the past two weeks.
He will be a guest on the RTL-Le Figaro-M6 show Grand Jury on Sunday.
Reduce the use of pesticides
On Wednesday, the day before Gabriel Attal's announcements, he reaffirmed that there could be no
"pretext to go back on the ecological transition"
, during his wishes to those involved in ecology.
The minister also wants to use these three weeks to
“specify the use of the additional 250 million euros”
dedicated to the protection of nature and water in 2024 in order to reduce the use of pesticides.
Read alsoEnvironmental NGOs dismayed by the “pause” of the pesticide reduction plan
And he considered it unsatisfactory that France uses an indicator for measuring the use of pesticides (called Nodu) different from a European indicator:
“Giving ourselves a few weeks to discuss the European indicator, that does not seem to us absolutely not be a questioning of our principles
,” said Christophe Béchu.
The major French cereal producers are very opposed to the French indicator which, they say, does not reflect the drop in consumption of active substances in the fields.
On the European Green Deal, Christophe Béchu called for
“finding the pace that is compatible with these ambitions”
.
“When you ban pesticides in France, and you allow products to arrive from abroad using these same pesticides on the shelves of our supermarkets, where is the consistency, ecological and health, for biodiversity?”
, asked the minister.