Emmanuel Macron crosses the threshold of the White House on August 18, 2025. A diplomatic sequence brings him together there with Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky, and several European leaders. Credits: Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok.
The Parliament definitively adopted, on July 21, 2026, a bill paving the way for targeted exemptions for two pesticides banned in France. This new step sheds light on pesticide policy under Emmanuel Macron. It recalls the unfulfilled promise of a glyphosate ban in France, the temporary return of neonicotinoids in France, and the change in indicator. It also reveals repeated trade-offs between the environment, farm income, and European competition.
2026: Exemptions, Not a General Reauthorization
The final vote took place in the Senate, by 214 votes to 111. It concludes the parliamentary process for the emergency bill for agricultural protection and sovereignty. The National Assembly had adopted the compromise the day before. The official voting record indeed describes a text “definitively adopted” by Parliament. However, this vote is not enough to make its provisions immediately applicable: promulgation and publication of the law are still required.
The most contested part does not lift the French ban in one fell swoop. The text adopted by the joint committee provides for a referral to ANSES by the Minister of Agriculture. ANSES is the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety. The agency would then have two months to decide whether an exceptional exemption could be granted. A marketing authorization, or an emergency authorization provided for under European law, would also remain necessary.
The division between substances and crops is precise. Flupyradifurone could be granted exemptions for treated sugar beet seeds, as well as for cherry and apple trees. Acetamiprid would concern only hazelnut production. In each case, the decision would apply for one year and could be renewed twice, for a maximum of three years.
Several safeguards are built into the mechanism. A serious threat to the sector and the clear absence of alternatives would have to be established. A research plan would also be required. ANSES would also have to rely on the latest knowledge and the conditions of use. It would verify that the exemption does not create a significant risk to human health. It would also have to rule out any serious and irreversible harm to the environment. The text also provides for measures against spray drift. For treated seeds, it imposes temporary restrictions on crops attractive to pollinators.
Annie Genevard defends this mechanism in the name of technical dead ends. The Minister of Agriculture also cites competition from European producers who still have access to these solutions. The Minister for Ecological Transition, Monique Barbut, opposed the pesticides section. This political disagreement is clear, but it should not obscure the legal sequence. European authorization of a substance, the national rule, and the decision on a product are separate steps. A decision also concerns a specific use.
2017-2019: The Glyphosate Promise Runs Into Real-World Use
In November 2017, after the European renewal of glyphosate approval, Emmanuel Macron asks the government to prepare for its ban in France. He sets the deadline at “no later than three years,” as soon as alternatives have been found. The commitment is clear, but it does not become a general ban in law.
In January 2019, the president acknowledges that a total phaseout within the announced timeframe will not be met. The executive branch now favors abandoning uses for which a substitute solution is available. The political promise, uniform and time-bound, thus gives way to a gradual approach, differentiated by crop.
This reversal is real, but it is not enough to measure all pesticide use in France. Glyphosate is a specific substance; keeping it does not prove either a general increase in volumes or stability across all uses. A fact-check published by AFP in 2022 examined the available data through 2020. It found an average decline in sales and in the number of doses used since 2017. It nevertheless recalled the government backtracking on glyphosate and on neonicotinoids in France.
2021: The Beetroot Precedent
France had voted in 2016 to ban neonicotinoids. Taking effect on September 1, 2018, it was then extended to substances with the same mode of action. Faced with a sugar beet yellowing crisis, the law of December 14, 2020, nevertheless reinstated temporary exemptions. They concerned coated seeds. Orders authorized for 120 days sugar beet seeds treated with imidacloprid or thiamethoxam. These measures covered the 2021 and 2022 growing seasons.
This precedent sheds light on the current sequence without being the same thing. The beet exemptions were part of an emergency regime limited to seeds and bounded in time. The mechanism adopted in 2026 splits two substances across four sectors and entrusts the decision to ANSES, under a series of detailed conditions. In both cases, the central argument is the same: allow an exception as long as no solution deemed operational exists. The dispute, meanwhile, concerns the assessment of that dead end and the environmental cost of waiting.
2024: Ecophyto Changes Its Indicator
The quantitative picture is harder to establish than the timeline of laws. Launched in 2008, the Ecophyto plan already aimed to cut the use of plant protection products by half. The Ecophyto 2030 strategy, published in May 2024, keeps a 50% reduction target by 2030. Its reference remains the 2011-2013 average, but it now uses the European HRI1 indicator.
This change makes it impossible to place the figures side by side as if they described the same reality. NODU, the former reference indicator, relates quantities sold to the maximum authorized doses and thus estimates the number of doses applied. HRI1 combines quantities of active substances sold with coefficients linked to their hazard classification. One tracks treatment intensity more closely; the other seeks to capture use and risk through weighting.
In its first Ecophyto 2030 review in May 2025, the government announced a 36% drop in the risk indicator. This change was calculated relative to the reference period. Environmental groups dispute this reading. According to them, HRI1 falls mechanically when a highly weighted substance disappears. This change would not necessarily reflect an equivalent drop in treatment frequency. This criticism does not prove falsification, but it prevents the government percentage from being presented as a comprehensive measure of practices.
The question of the “most used” pesticide therefore has no single answer unless the unit chosen is specified. A ranking by tons of active substances, by doses, by treated area, or by weighted risk does not produce the same result. Year-to-year swings further complicate the picture: purchases had risen sharply in 2018, before a tax, then dropped in 2019. Multi-year averages are more robust. However, the switch from NODU to HRI1 prevents a direct comparison across the entire 2017-2026 period.
A Decade That Defies Simple Verdicts
Emmanuel Macron’s record shows a sharp break between the ambition set out in 2017 and the choices made afterward. The general phaseout of glyphosate did not happen within the promised timeframe. Neonicotinoids France, banned at the national level, were subject to temporary exceptions, and Parliament has just opened a new mechanism for targeted uses.
This sequence does not, however, prove that all indicators increased without interruption. Nor does it allow the conclusion that the reduction trajectory has been secured. Decisions on a few molecules, quantities sold, and the number of doses describe different dimensions. The risk indicator sheds light on yet another one in pesticide policy in France.
The next test will be concrete. If the text is promulgated, each referral to ANSES will have to document the threat to a sector. It will also have to examine available alternatives and the risks associated with the requested use. The agency’s decisions and the annual reports provided for in the text will specify the scope of these exceptions. They will show whether they remain narrow or become a new, lasting way of conducting plant protection policy.