In a decision of July 26, 2021, the Council of State had ordered the Government to complete, within 6 months, the rules for the use of pesticides, in order to better protect the population. It is in the extremis respect of the deadline, January 26, 2022 that an order and a decree relating to the measures of protection of persons during the use of plant protection products near residential areas have been published in the Official Journal. These texts are far below the expectations of associations and do not meet the requirements of the Council of State.

First of all, the Government does not respect the decision of the Council of State which enjoins it to increase the minimum distances, fixed at 5 meters for low crops, between houses and the zones of application of products which are suspected of being carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic. It simply refers the question of these minimum distances to the updating of the authorizations of these products by ANSES “with the objective that no-treatment distances be set for all of them by October 1, 2022”. The Government is thus shamelessly offering itself an additional period of time to comply with the decision of the highest French administrative court.

However, the Government respects the decision of the Council of State that the measures of minimum safety distances, applied to people living near the spraying areas, be extended to people working near these areas. The minimum safety distances for pesticides will now apply to “places where workers are regularly present near these treatments”.

But if the Government seems to respond to the request of the Council of State to make it compulsory, and no longer optional, to inform residents and people present[1] in the vicinity of pesticide application areas before the use of pesticides, this information must be provided through departmental charters of commitment, in which the protection measures are set by pesticide users. As the commitment charters will only be published within six months of the publication of the decree, it will take some time before people are informed, as our partner Générations Futures has noted.

Above all, these commitment charters, whose preparation and adoption procedures were modified by the decree of January 25, give the impression that the Government is withdrawing from a major public health issue, by refraining, on the one hand, from establishing a truly protective national framework for people living or working near pesticide application areas and, on the other hand, by suggesting that these people will be able to contribute to the elaboration of these charters. However, since the observations and proposals collected at the end of a public consultation are not binding on the authority competent to validate the charters, i.e. the prefect, it is doubtful that this consultation will improve the protection of people.

Confronted with the dangers of the use of pesticides for people near the spraying areas, which remain despite the publication of these two texts, French associations, including Générations futures, are considering the possibility of legal action against these texts. Our partner Agir pour l’environnement has already referred the matter to the Council of State in the framework of a summary suspension procedure.

^[1] According to EU Regulation 284/2013, “bystanders are people who casually are located within or directly adjacent to an area where application of a plant protection product is in process or has taken place, but not for the purpose of working on the treated area or with the treated commodity; residents are people who live, work or attend any institution near to areas that are treated with plant protection products, but not for the purpose of working on the treated area or with the treated commodity.”