Left-Wing Deputies Take France’s Emergency Farm Law to the Constitutional Court

Overview

• Les Écologistes and La France insoumise filed a referral to the Conseil constitutionnel on Friday, July 24, asking the court to annul parts of the newly adopted loi d'urgence agricole.
• The complaint targets the reintroduction by derogation of two pesticides, acetamiprid and flupyradifurone, saying the authorizations were inserted without a link to the original bill and lack sufficient spatial limits.
• The deputies also challenge the law’s goal to double agricultural water-storage capacity by 2035 on the grounds that such a multi-year target belongs in a programming law, not an ordinary law.
• The referral objects to procedural changes that replace mandatory public meetings for storage-project environmental approvals with 'permanences,' arguing this reduces public participation protected by the Charte de l'environnement.
• The case tests whether the revised measures respond to last summer’s Conseil decision that struck down a previous pesticide return and asks the court to decide within roughly thirty days whether the contested provisions can stand.