Will DUPLOM law come out unscathed from the Constitutional Council? The latter’s conclusions are in any case eagerly awaited this Thursday on the reintroduction under the conditions of a prohibited pesticide, as well as on three other texts, in particular the reform of the municipal ballot in Paris, Lyon and Marseille.
On the agricultural law, the decision of the institution, expected from 6 p.m., will be particularly scrutinized. It will send a signal both on the environmental and health debate caused by the text, and on the parliamentary law linked to the conditions of its examination.
Presented as a response to major agricultural demonstrations of 2024, the Duplo law was the subject of a strong protest movement despite summer, pushed by environmental defenders. A petition demanding its repeal brought together more than 2.1 million signatures.
In question in particular: the derogatory reintroduction of a pesticide from the family of neonicotinoids. Harmful for biodiversity, but still authorized elsewhere in Europe, the return of acetamipride is claimed by certain producers of beets and hazelnuts.
For leftist parliamentarians, who seized the wise men, the text is contrary to the environment charter, with constitutional value. In particular its precautionary principle, as well as the “right to live in a balanced and healthy environment”.
But difficult, even for law experts, to guess what interpretations the Constitutional Council, chaired by Richard Ferrand, will favor. Jurisprudence is at first sight not favorable to applicants. The institution has already spoken in the past on the use in the Senate of an equivalent rejection procedure – without censor.
If there is validation, what will Emmanuel Macron do?
The FNSEA, a powerful agricultural union from the Senator LR Laurent Dupumb, did not want to speak before the decision. For Véronique Le Floc’h, president of the second union rural coordination union, censorship on acetamipride would be hypocritical: “the state would have had to give real means to find alternatives” in the face of pests.
But for the Confédération Paysanne, the third union, the DUPLOM law responds “to very specific interests in a sector”, and not to the “agricultural anger” of 2024 and to the income problems of farmers. Many learned companies have called on the Constitutional Council to censor the law, recalling the “strong presumption of link between exposure to pesticides” and “certain cancers” or other pathologies.
In the event of validation of the law Thursday, the looks will turn to Emmanuel Macron, who will have fifteen days to promulgate it … or ask for a second deliberation in Parliament, as the contemptors of the law press.
Another text with the strong political issues examined by the Council this Thursday: the so -called “PLM” reform. It establishes two elections in the three largest cities in France: one to elect the borough or sector councilors, the other for those of the municipal council, on a single district.
The wise men were seized by left -wing deputies and senators, as well as the Les Républicains senators. The Parisian PS points to a reform designed to promote the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati (LR), and increase its chances of delighting the town hall of Paris in 2026.
