FRANCE: Towards glyphosate phase out

The renewal of the glyphosate approval for five years was adopted in December 2017 by the European Commission. The evaluation by ANSES (French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety) of applications for the renewal of authorisation of glyphosate-based PPPs according to Article 43 of Regulation (EC) 1107/2009 is in progress.

To date, 190 glyphosate-based products are authorised in France or benefit from a parallel trade permit. 58 applications for PPPs renewal and 11 applications for new PPPs approval were submitted to ANSES. Regarding the 132 products for which  renewal application was submitted, ANSES notified the products’ holders of the expiry of approvals or parallel trade permits as from 15 December 2018. The list of products concerned has been published on the E-phy website.

For products intended for professional use, the end of sale and distribution of the products is set to 15/03/2019 and the end of use of the products and stocks is set to 15/06/2019.
For products intended for amateur use, no grace period is granted in view of the entry into force on 1 January 2019 of the Labbé’s law (February 2014) amended by the Energetic transition law (August 2015) and the Potier’s law (March 2017), prohibiting the marketing and holding of non-professional PPPs.

ANSES announces that the evaluation of the new approval applications and renewal applications will be finalized before 31 December 2020, within the three-year period announced by the government.

In addition, the evaluation of the new approval applications and renewal applications will be conducted on the basis of a comparative assessment of the products: based on the information that will be provided on the available alternatives commonly used in France, particularly by INRA (French National Institute for Research in Agriculture), ANSES will compare, for each use, glyphosate products with the non-chemical methods of prevention or control that are available. For each glyphosate-based product, uses for which there is an alternative that meets the substitution criteria will therefore be prohibited.

Finally, in order to support farmers foregoing glyphosate use, the government launched a website sharing experiences from farmers who have already taken part in this initiative and describing possible alternatives to glyphosate. The website also records the plots declared without glyphosate in each department as well as the number of farmers having stop any use of glyphosate and engaged in this way.

To download:

Liste des produits à base de glyphosate faisant l’objet d’un retrait du marché à compter du 15 décembre 2018 (in French)

See also our previous articles:

EUROPE: Renewal of glyphosate approval

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