“I am satisfied to see that there is this mobilization, the government must hear it,” reacts Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, deputy EPR

The petition against the DUPLomb law, which in particular proposes to temporarily authorize the use of acetamipride, a pesticide prohibited since 2018 in France, still authorized in Europe, to help producers of beets and hazelnuts to fight against parasites, has just passed the two million signatures mark on Monday, July 28. Journalist Alexandre Peyrout receives Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, deputy together for the Republic of the French established outside France to evoke this mobilization initiated on July 10, which opens the way to a new discussion around the text.

This text corresponds to the transcription of part of the interview above. Click on the video to watch the maintenance in full.

Alexandre Peyrout: The petition against the Duplo law, which notably reintroduces a pesticide deemed dangerous, has just passed the two million signatures. What is your reaction?

PIEYRE-Alexandre Anglade: It says a lot about citizen mobilization against this law, against the reintroduction of neonicotinoids which very much worries the French. I voted against this law in the National Assembly, because I think we have started a great movement for the preservation of biodiversity with the gradual exit of neonicotinoids, and go back, at a time when we can see that biodiversity collapses, it is an error. I am satisfied to see that there is this mobilization, and, now, the government must hear it. I think it has already been heard by the ministers, who had announced a debate in the fall in Parliament.

Do you have to repeal this law?

The State, the Parliament voted for it and therefore, I think that it is necessary first to debate, to see what the ANSES will tell us, and then maybe one day it will be necessary to come back on it. But in any event, we cannot undo what Parliament has just voted. Nevertheless, the debate must be done, the health authorities must be seized. And, if necessary, if they came to conclude again that this product is harmful, then, it will obviously be necessary to reset to the National Assembly.

There is a constitutional possibility, article 10 of the Constitution, that is to say that Emmanuel Macron may not promulgate this law and request a new deliberation. We remember the somewhat hectic conditions in which this text was adopted. Do you think is the right solution?

You talk about the way the text has been adopted. Why is there today, there is a form of discomfort around this text? This is because there was no real debate in the National Assembly. Because the oppositions were overwhelmed, and then because there was a bypass maneuver on the part of the central block, to which I belong, through a motion of rejection which was adopted, which avoided the debate. And so there is a situation that is unsatisfactory. We will see what the Constitutional Council will say on the law. We will then see what will be the tools available to the President of the Republic. But I believe that the right path to follow is to hear what is said in this petition, to redo the debate, to redo a new debate in the National Assembly on the basis of ANSES’s conclusions.

There have been a lot of renunciations on ecological issues lately, you have stressed it yourself. Is it not a reminder to order for you?

You know, since 2017, even if we have sometimes heard the opposite, many things have been done by the President of the Republic, by the successive governments which have succeeded in power in France. And we have seen, since the dissolution, since there is no more majority in the National Assembly, a form of deadly decline on environmental issues, on issues of biodiversity, climate struggle, which is an absolute priority. You were talking about forest fires in your newspapers, drought in the south. It is clear that France and Europe are on the front line in climate change. And France, in recent years, has been a motor, a pioneer on many environmental advances, it must remain so and I regret very much that there is this movement which is initiated, in particular by the Party Les Républicains, which sometimes behaves in the climatosceptic.

Precisely, the Républicains party is however your ally to the government, can it continue like that, this alliance, seeing that, obviously, there are strong dissensions, especially on a subject as crucial as the environment?

We can see that we do not carry the same project, nor the same vision for the country. It is an alliance of circumstances in the government, because the dissolution led to this divided parliament, without absolute majority, of blocks that are faced. And the country needs to have a government, to have stability, to be able to meet the challenges that are extremely numerous, in particular climatic and environmental challenges. But it is true that with the LR, we can see a form of skepticism on environmental subjects. So I call LR deputies, and I know there are in this group, to wake up on these subjects, because they do not go in the right direction.

Click on the video to watch the maintenance in full.