France's parliament just voted to bring back two pesticides that scientists say can poison bees. Beekeepers who spent years watching their hives collapse under these same chemicals are now watching lawmakers approve them again. The pesticides, acetamiprid and flupyradifurone, were banned in France for years because of the harm they cause to bees. So why is France bringing back this deadly poison?
Sign the petition to demand France's Constitutional Council strike down this law before it takes effect.
Studies show they damage bees' memory and ability to find their way back to the hive, and one recent study found flupyradifurone can be lethal to honeybees outright. Beekeepers say honey production in France has already been cut in half since these chemicals were first introduced decades ago, and some watched their hives lose tens of thousands of bees in a matter of days.
Farmers pushing for the pesticides say they need them to protect crops like sugar beets and hazelnuts from disease-carrying insects, but beekeeping groups, environmental organizations, and lawmakers opposed to the bill say it was rushed through without real safeguards for public health or the environment. They plan to challenge the law before the Constitutional Council, the same body that struck down a nearly identical law last year after more than two million people signed a petition against it.
Bees pollinate the food we eat and the ecosystems we depend on. When their populations collapse, the damage doesn't stop with beekeepers. Striking down this law would protect bees from a return to the chemicals that already devastated them once, and send a clear message that public health and environmental safeguards can't simply be brushed aside to satisfy one industry at the expense of another.
France banned these pesticides before because the science was clear. Sign the petition to demand the Constitutional Council follow that same science and strike this law down again.
