On July 6, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) delivered its long-awaited opinion on the risks of glyphosate. This assessment should enable the European Commission and EU member states to decide whether or not to re-authorize glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto-Bayer’s famous Roundup, the world’s best-selling pesticide, by the end of the year. The stakes are high, and concern the re-authorization (or not) of glyphosate for 15 years. Some thirty civil society organizations have been working on this issue for years, and over half a million citizens have signed their joint petition, demanding that France play an unambiguous leadership role in securing a European ban on glyphosate by 2023. While doubts remain about the position France will take at European level, it is urgent to put an end to this substance, classified as a “probable carcinogen” for humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC/UN).

The assessment of glyphosate’s impact on human health, animals and the environment has not identified any critical areas, informs EFSA. However, some data gaps are reported in EFSA’s conclusions that the European Commission and the Member States will have to take into consideration during the next stage of the authorization renewal procedure. Among the issues that could not be finalized are the assessment of one of glyphosate’s impurities, the dietary risk assessment for consumers and the risk assessment for aquatic plants. 

While President Macron had pledged to phase out glyphosate in France “by the latest” at the beginning of 2021, he hasn’t kept that promise. At European level, the declared active substance in Monsanto-Bayer’s Roundup had been re-authorized for 5 years at the end of 2017, despite numerous scandals: Monsanto papers, manipulation of scientific data, concealment of information from the authorities, payment of specialists to write favorable tribunes and scientific studies (ghostwriting), propaganda operation, threats and intimidation of scientists and public organizations in charge of studying cancer, lawsuits across the Atlantic, illegal filing.

On the strength of a mobilization of half a million citizens in France and a European citizens’ initiative gathering the necessary one million signatories, the organizations are today demanding that France defend the ban on glyphosate in Europe in 2023. For these civil society organizations: “Given the well-documented risks to the environment and human health, it is more than urgent to apply the precautionary principle enshrined in European texts and the French Constitution to put an end to glyphosate and finally initiate a genuine agricultural and food transition”.

On the strength of a mobilization of half a million citizens in France and a European citizens’ initiative gathering the necessary million signatories, the organizations are today demanding that France defend a ban on glyphosate in Europe in 2023. For these civil society organizations: Given the well-documented risks to the environment and human health, it is more than urgent to apply the precautionary principle enshrined in European texts and the French Constitution to put an end to glyphosate and finally initiate a genuine agricultural and food transition. 

The coalition of some thirty social organizations is basing its position on recent damning scientific studies:

– The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency of the World Health Organization (UN), classified glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen” for humans in 2015. For the IARC, glyphosate generates oxidative stress and is genotoxic.

– Scientific data also attest to glyphosate’s genotoxic potential – in its 2021 analysis, INSERM states that “an analysis of toxicological studies shows that mutagenicity tests on glyphosate are rather negative, whereas genotoxicity tests are rather positive, which is consistent with the induction of oxidative stress.”

– INRAE, in a May 2023 study of soil pollution by pesticides, demonstrates that “the most frequently detected molecules are glyphosate and AMPA, its main metabolite, present in 70% and 8% of the soils sampled.”

– The Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail (ANSES) warned in 2022 of the consequences of glyphosate on several generations of trout, suggesting an endocrine-disrupting effect.

– EFSA identified risks to non-target vertebrate species from exposure to glyphosate-based products in 2015.

– Inserm pointed out in 2021 that “glyphosate may exhibit endocrine disrupting properties that have an impact on reproductive function”. These properties have been highlighted in several studies (here and here) linking exposure during pregnancy to increased premature births, low birth weight and abnormal development of infants’ reproductive organs.

– The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), meanwhile, has highlighted the substance’s chronic toxicity on aquatic species in 2022.

In a letter handed to the Prime Minister on July 5, our organizations recall all the proven harmful effects of this herbicide, and the reasons why France and the EU as a whole should not authorize this toxic substance.

Signatories : Agir pour l’environnement, Alerte des Médecins sur les Pesticides, Amis de la Terre, Attac France, Bio Consom’acteurs, Bloom, Cantine sans plastique France, CCFD-Terre-Solidaire, Commerce équitable France, Confédération paysanne, Ekō, FNAB, Fondation pour la Nature et l’Homme, foodwatch France, France Nature Environnement, Générations Futures, Greenpeace France, Ingénieurs sans frontières agriSTA, Institut Veblen, Justice Pesticides, Ligue des droits de l’Homme, Noé, Notre affaire à tous, Réseau Action Climat, Réseau Environnement Santé, RESOLIS, Secrets Toxiques, SOL, Terre & Humanisme, Terre d’abeilles, Union Nationale de l’Apiculture Française, Vrac, WECF France, WeMove Europe.