FNE and Générations Futures file an appeal for the annulment of a note from the Ministry of Agriculture from April 20, 2023 addressed to the Office Français de la Biodiversité (OFB) asking to avoid controlling the timing of pesticide spraying by arborists, at the Administrative Court of Melun.

The note concerns the "conduct to be adopted" by OFB agents in the judicial police missions for which they are responsible in the event of non-compliance with the prohibitions set out in the decree of November 20, 2021 on the protection of bees and other pollinating insects and the preservation of pollination services during the use of phytopharmaceutical products. As a result, unannounced checks have been suspended, despite the fact that flagrante delicto is one of the means favored by agents to detect such infringements.

According to the petitioning NGOs: "instructing agents authorized to investigate and record breaches of a legal provision not to record breaches of the law or a regulation constitutes an unlawful instruction issued by the administrative authority".