French Senate reopens acétamipride debate as 1,000 local officials pledge to punish pro-pesticide senators
The French Senate begins examining an agricultural emergency bill on Monday that includes amendments to reintroduce two neonicotinoid insecticides, acétamipride and flupyradifurone, on a derogatory basis. A cross-party tribune signed by 1,000 local elected officials warns senators they will not vote for candidates who back the measure.
The amendment and its path back to the floor
The Senate's examination of the projet de loi d'urgence agricole (PLUA) starts at 16:00 on 29 June 2026. In committee, senators led by Laurent Duplomb (LR) inserted an amendment to reintroduce acétamipride and flupyradifurone, two neonicotinoid insecticides banned in France since 2016 but still authorised elsewhere in the European Union. The derogations would be time-limited, subject to an opinion from the health security agency Anses, and restricted to specific sectors such as hazelnuts and sugar beet.
Similar provisions were struck down by the Constitutional Council in 2025 after a summer petition against acétamipride gathered over 2 million signatures. The new text has been reworked to pass constitutional scrutiny, its authors hope. The government opposes the pesticide clause, fearing it could derail the entire bill before the summer recess at the end of July.
Local officials draw a red line
Ahead of the debate, 1,000 local elected officials from across France published a cross-party tribune in the Gazette des communes. Ten signatories from the Trégor area in Brittany called on the more than 400 grands électeurs of the Lannion-Trégor communauté to join them. They delivered an ultimatum to sitting senators and candidates for the September 2026 senatorial elections.
We will not be able, in good conscience, to vote for candidates who, as senators, would have voted to re-authorise this type of pesticide.
The tribune describes neonicotinoids as poisons of the nervous system for all terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, as well as birds, fish and mammals, and warns of serious risks to human health. It also invokes the unprecedented citizen mobilisation of summer 2025, arguing that such a legislative reversal would go against the expectations expressed by a large part of the population.
Beet growers push for a competitive lifeline
Sugar beet producers, who harvested 4.5 million tonnes of sugar in 2025, see acétamipride as essential to fight aphids spreading jaundice disease. Franck Sander, president of the 23,000-member Confédération générale des planteurs de betteraves, points to a 5% drop in French beet acreage to just under 400,000 hectares last year, while Polish acreage rose 30% and German acreage grew 10%.
Our main competitors are the Germans. I am Alsatian and 20 kilometres from my home, this product is used. I, in Alsace, cannot.
Sander links the loss of competitiveness to the closure of six French sugar factories over the past seven years and warns that 70,000 jobs tied to the sector are at stake. He urges pragmatism, arguing that production should not be relocated just across the Rhine.
- France
- -5 %
- Germany
- 10 %
- Poland
- 30 %
A tense political calendar
The PLUA was adopted by the National Assembly in early June with support ranging from the presidential camp to the Rassemblement National. The Senate, dominated by a right-centre alliance, intends to go further than the government's text on several fronts, including water management and wolf predation. The pesticide amendment has already drawn sharp criticism from the left, which denounces a pro-pesticide escalation, and from environmental groups. The government has publicly expressed concern that the Senate's additions could fracture the fragile majority and stall the bill before the parliamentary summer break.
