‘Scandalous, irrational and irresponsible’: French beekeepers’ fury at lifting of pesticides ban

A beekeeper holds a honeycomb with dead bees on it during a 2018 demonstration in Paris over the impact of agricultural chemicals on bees. Photograph: François Mori/APView image in fullscreenA beekeeper holds a honeycomb with dead bees on it during a 2018 demonstration in Paris over the impact of agricultural chemicals on bees. Photograph: François Mori/AP‘Scandalous, irrational and irresponsible’: French beekeepers’ fury at lifting of pesticides banAllowing use of two neonicotinoids to combat crop-ruining disease will kill bees and reduce harvests, union saysBeekeepers and environmentalists in France have reacted furiously after parliament approved a bill reauthorising two banned pesticides scientists say can poison bees.

“There are no words to describe the frustration,” said Carolyn Bouguet, a beekeeper in Essonne, greater Paris. “Bee populations have already been badly compromised by climate change, new parasites and loss of habitat. And now this.”

Henri Clément, a beekeeper in the southern Lozère department and spokesperson for the French beekeeping association, UNAF, said the measure was “an absolute disaster for our sector, and for biodiversity as a whole”.For bees, the risk was “very high mortality rates and reduced harvests”, Clément told local media. “It’s just incomprehensible these pesticides have been reauthorised.

We’ve been fighting them for 30 years. It’s scandalous, irrational and irresponsible.”The law, passed on Tuesday, allows France’s food and environmental safety agency, Anses, to grant waivers authorising the use of the pesticides acetamiprid and flupyradifurone in struggling farm sectors and under exceptional circumstances.

The use of the pesticides, allowed in the EU but banned in France, will be authorised to combat aphid-borne diseases that can ruin crops of sugar beet, apples, hazelnuts and cherries, which has led producers to claim they can no longer compete with European rivals.Scientific studies have established that acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid with powerful neurotoxic effects, can poison bees, affecting their foraging capacity and memory. A 2024 study suggested flupyradifurone could be lethal to some honeybees.

Greenpeace France said the country’s centrist government and its rightwing allies in parliament were “trampling on science, health, the environment and the clear will of the people”, describing the legislation as “deeply concerning” and “a disgrace”.France’s environment minister, Monique Barbut, said the legislation was “one environmental setback too many” and submitted her resignation on Wednesday, but was later persuaded to stay on after meeting President Emmanuel Macron.View image in fullscreenThe French environment minister, Monique Barbut, formerly headed WWF France.

Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier/ReutersHowever, France’s largest farmers’ union, the FNSEA, welcomed the bill’s approval as “a major milestone and a victory for French farmers”, while the agriculture minister, Annie Genevard, said it brought “real and tangible solutions” to growers.According to agriculture ministry figures, honey production in France halved between the mid-1990s, when neonicotinoids were introduced, and the mid-2010s, although habitat loss and climate breakdown were also contributing factors.Bouguet said France had been “a model” for other countries when it banned neonicotinoids.

Scientific research showed the pesticides harmed not just insects but soil ecosystems, and could have an impact on human health, she noted.“Bees are the canary in the environmental coalmine,” she said. “Their health is a huge indicator of what’s happening in the natural world.

Protecting bees means protecting life. Protecting life means protecting our future.”Christian Pons, the UNAF president, told reporters the law “claims to defend French food sovereignty, but since when is it acceptable to destroy one sector – that of beekeepers – in order to save another, for example that of hazelnut trees?”

Yves Delaunay, a beekeeper from the western Vendée department, said that after neonicotinoids were introduced in the 1990s, his honey production “went from 80kg per hive to 5kg” and the colonies “collapsed”.“In just a few days, we went from 70,000 bees to 20,000,” he told local media. “They were disoriented, unable to return to the hive.

We found them dead everywhere. It was a huge loss.”The senate backed the bill by 214 votes to 111 on Tuesday after it received lower house approval.

The proposal to authorise the two pesticides was included in the bill late in the legislative process to help ensure it cleared the right-leaning upper house.The French parliament last year passed a bill reauthorising acetamiprid despite a petition against it that gathered more than 2m signatures. That bill was annulled by the constitutional council, which said it did not abide by France’s environmental charter.

Barbut, who previously headed the conservation charity WWF France, said after the vote that she had sought to defend “the silence of ou