A priority preliminary ruling relating to the conformity with the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of paragraph IV of Article L. 253-8 of the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code, in its wording resulting from Law No. 2018-938 for the balance of trade relations in the agricultural and food sector, known as the EGALIM Law, has been submitted to the Constitutional Council.

Non-approved active substances are those that, following their evaluation by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), are subject to an implementing regulation not approving or not renewing their approval authorization, on the grounds of environmental or health hazards, as stated in the implementing circular of July 23, 2019. This circular was the subject of an appeal for excess of power by the Union of Plant Protection Industries (UIPP) before the Council of State. On this occasion, the UIPP presented the QPC to the judges, who decided to submit it to the Constitutional Council on November 7, 2019.

Article L.253-8 (IV) states that ".-The production, storage and circulation of plant protection products containing active substances not approved for reasons related to the protection of human or animal health or the environment in accordance with the aforementioned Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 shall be prohibited from 1 January 2022, subject to compliance with the rules of the World Trade Organization."

According to the UIPP, the prohibition of sale and export stated infringes the freedom of enterprise guaranteed by Article 4 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 and this infringement would be unrelated to an objective of environmental and health protection insofar as the importing countries could always be supplied from third countries and that, as a result, the impact on health or the environment of countries outside the European Union would be the same.

In its decision of 31 January 2020, the Constitutional Council concluded, on the contrary, that the legislator had affected the freedom of enterprise in a way that was in line with the constitutional objectives of protecting health and the environment.

Based on the preamble of the Charter of the Environment, it establishes a new objective of constitutional value, i.e. a goal assigned by the Constitution to the legislator, that is the "protection of the environment, the common heritage of human beings". Since the environment is understood to be the common heritage of human beings, the legislator is justified in taking into account the environmental effects of activities carried out in France on a global scale, even if these effects are restricted by the behaviour of other non-French companies.

By establishing the protection of the environment as an objective of constitutional value, the Constitutional Council remains faithful to its QPC case law no. 2014-394 of 7 May 2014, Société Casuca, according to which the seven paragraphs that constitute the Preamble of the Charter of the Environment do not establish any right or freedom that the Constitution does not guarantee, and are therefore not invocable in QPC. They are norms on the basis of which the legislator may restrict such constitutional rights or freedoms.

The entry into force from 1 January 2022 of the ban on the production, storage or circulation of plant protection products containing unapproved active substances is therefore deemed to comply with the Constitution.