LA DUPLOM law is a law that does not pass. Who does not pass for the French and the French victims of the diseases induced by pesticides, whose anger is legitimate. Who does not pass for scientists, who, noting the devastating effects of pesticides on the living, alerted parliamentarians from the foreseeable consequences of this law. Who does not pass for many farmers, who know that the destruction of pollinating insects will affect the majority of them, and that they will be, as well as their families and their children, the first victims of pesticides. Who does not pass for more than two million French citizens who signed the petition asking for its repeal. And who does not pass for us either, learned medical or scientific societies, patient associations, who cannot resolve us to accept a law dangerous for the health of our fellow citizens.
How to understand the voting of a majority of parliamentarians in favor of this law? It could be tempting to evoke political strategies aimed at ensuring the support of powerful Relays of opinion such as the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA), but it would be necessary to admit an inconceivable political cynicism when public health is at stake. Another explanation seems more plausible, that of ignorance.
Among the 53 personalities heard by the senatorial commission preparing the text, there are representatives of agricultural unions, the pesticide lobby, certain state agencies (including the National Food Safety Agency) or public scientific or technological establishments (including the National Institute for Research for Agriculture, Food and the Environment), environmental defense associations.
But there are no doctor, toxicologist, epidemiologist. No representative of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), the CNRS, the Ministry of Health or Labor (pesticides are recognized factors of occupational diseases), no representative of the National Health Insurance Fund or the Agricultural Social Mutuality.
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