France targets pesticides/GMO in new eco strategy

26 October 2007 13:32  [Source: ICIS news]

PARIS (ICIS news)--France has made firm decisions to reduce pesticides use in France by 50% over the next 10 years and to freeze the planting of pesticide-GMO crops until a new law promised for next spring 2008, it announced late on Thursday.

President Nicolas Sarkozy made the decisions among the propositions advanced in nation-wide discussions and debates carried out over the last four months within the Grenelle de l'Environnement forum.

The gradual reduction in pesticides usage is contingent on the development of alternative methods.

The challenge will be a very difficult and ambitious one, a spokeswoman for France's crop protection industry trade group told ICIS news, especially if it is to be achieved within the next 10 years.

However, President Sarkozy said France would work in close concert with the European Commission on the GMO (genetically modified organism) issue.

Promising France an "ecological new deal", the president made it clear in his speech that all public decisions would now be arbitrated by integrating their cost in terms of their effect on the climate, carbon emissions and impact on biodiversity.

A climate-energy tax is being mulled, he said.

Attending the decision stage of the Grenelle de l'Environnement were EC president Jose-Manuel Barroso and Nobel Peace Award winner Al Gore. 

By: Doris Leblond
+44 20 8652 3214

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