PARIS, July 22 (Reuters) – French Environment Minister Monique Barbut, who handed in her resignation in protest after parliament’s approval of a farm bill allowing the temporary reintroduction of two pesticides suspected of harming bees, will remain in the government, government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said on Wednesday.
• “I told the prime minister yesterday that the conditions for me to stay in the government were no longer being met and I will present my resignation to the president today,” Barbut wrote in a post on LinkedIn earlier on Wednesday.
• But President Emmanuel Macron refused her resignation, and Barbut has since decided to stay in government, Bregeon told reporters.
• The farm bill allows, via a waiver, the use of acetamiprid – part of the neonicotinoid group of pesticides – on hazelnuts and flupyradifurone on sugar beets, apples and cherries.
• Environmental campaigners and some unions representing small-scale farmers have said the bill benefits the large-scale agro industry and ignores scientific warnings about the risks to pollinators, ecosystems and health, with Greenpeace denouncing the bill as “a disgrace”.
• The sugar industry has said the pesticides are needed to protect crops from aphids, which have ravaged beet harvests in previous years.
• The waiver must still be approved by France’s health and safety agency, and it cannot exceed three years.
• A petition against the bill last year gathered more than 2 million signatures, a record for a petition on the website of the National Assembly.
• Last year, the constitutional court had blocked the re-introduction of acetamiprid citing insufficient safeguards.
(Reporting by Makini Brice, Sybille de La Hamaide and Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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