National Assembly approves agricultural emergency law despite exceptions for pesticides

Paris – 21.07.2026: The National Assembly approved the bill to strengthen the protection and sovereignty of agriculture overnight into Tuesday by 296 votes to 224. The law is intended to provide an answer to the persistent economic and regulatory burdens facing many agricultural businesses. Following the agreement of a joint committee of deputies and senators, the Senate still has to deliberate on the compromise text.

The bill was submitted by the government through an accelerated legislative procedure. Its core is to facilitate investment and production projects in agriculture, secure access to water and production resources, and strengthen producers’ position in value chains. At the same time, it contains provisions against, from the perspective of agriculture, unfair competition from imported products subject to different production standards.

At the center of the controversy is an exemption scheme for the active substances acetamiprid and flupyradifurone. These were banned in France but are authorized at the European level. The compromise text allows temporary derogations from the French ban under certain conditions. Permits are envisaged for one year at a time, renewable twice, especially for use on sugar beet, apples, hazelnuts and cherries.

Acetamiprid belongs to the neonicotinoid group. According to parliamentary discussion documents, flupyradifurone works in a similar way. Supporters of the arrangement point out that French producers would be disadvantaged compared with competitors in other EU member states without effective alternatives. The exemptions should therefore apply only where technical deadlocks have been demonstrated and no equivalent solutions are available.

Left-wing groups largely voted against the law and criticized above all the return to these plant protection products. During deliberations in the Senate, the government had also opposed including the pesticide provision in the agricultural emergency law. It believed that a possible exemption should be decided in a separate law and after an independent debate. The Senate nevertheless maintained the provision.

The text now adopted incorporates numerous amendments that the predominantly conservative Senate adopted at the beginning of July and that the joint committee largely confirmed on 16 July. The procedure illustrates the institutional importance of this committee: when the National Assembly and the Senate have differing versions, it seeks to reach a detailed compromise with seven members from each chamber.

The Senate intends to discuss the committee’s conclusions on Tuesday, 21 July. If the second chamber also agrees to the text, the parliamentary procedure will be complete. However, the political conflict is unlikely to end there: the combination of product safety, European competition law and environmental protection remains a central point of contention in French agricultural policy.