"The Duplomb law characterizes the mindset of the right: the defense of narrow economic interests beyond the general interest."

Censorship by the Constitutional Council , Thursday, August 7, of Article 2 of the Duplomb Law, which once again authorized the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides, in no way affects the state of mind that now characterizes the French right, from the extreme right to the extreme center: the defense of narrow categorical economic interests beyond any consideration relating to the general interest, even if it means disregarding fundamental and transversal interests, such as the rights to a healthy environment and to health, enshrined in the Environmental Charter. The reaction of the National Federation of Farmers' Unions and the right-wing parties is that it is not the Duplomb Law that threatens the general interest, but the constitutional judge who flouts democracy!

Let us begin by highlighting the narrowness of the interests defended by the parliamentary majority in this matter. The issue at stake in the ban on neonicotinoids is not even the disappearance of a sector, beet cultivation , but rather lower profitability in certain years, those characterized by attacks of a disease, jaundice, which leads to a drop in yields.

The year in which these yields have seen a significant drop, 30%, since the ban on these neonicotinoids in 2018, is 2020, and even then in certain regions – a figure that is questionable since these same regions were then affected by a significant drought. It is therefore only a drop in yields, neither everywhere nor all the time, and this weighs more in the eyes of some than the destruction of the environment, the protection of public health, the fight against the explosion in the number of various cancers, the fact that they affect increasingly younger populations, and ultimately the death of others.

And that's not all: there are alternatives . First and foremost, organic farming. Farmers who practice it are completely free from the pangs of jaundice. Another alternative is agroecology, which, by reproducing the plurality of species specific to natural ecosystems, enriches biodiversity and soils instead of destroying them. But both require a different way of practicing the profession, requiring in particular greater labor intensity. There are even less dangerous agrochemical alternatives, but their use is even more restrictive.

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