Agriculture show: Greenpeace rebukes Macron over “new GMOs”

Greenpeace challenged President Emmanuel Macron, a day after his visit to the Salon de l’Agriculture, on his positions in favor of new genomic editing techniques for plants that, according to the association, produce “new GMOs”.

An AFP reporter said a handful of workers first climbed the arch, which marks the entrance to the Parc des Expositions in Port de Versailles, before activating smoke bombs from the green “for sustainable agriculture.” Not for GMOs” can be put up a banner.

A dozen workers, dressed in white CBRN-type overalls bearing the names of the largest agrochemical firms, then “sowed” kernels of green corn around a worker dressed as Emmanuel Macron on the Park Esplanade. Exhibitions, sometimes amusing, sometimes disappointing the gaze of visitors.

They raised slogans like “No, no, no, for regulation, yes, yes, yes for our benefit”.

The NGO “wanted to put some pressure on the candidates for the presidential election, who had already announced that they wanted to see the development of new GMOs in French agriculture, first of all Emmanuel Macron”, Joseph d’Halluin, said to the press. Agricultural campaigner at Greenpeace.

The candidacy of Emmanuel Macron for a new term as President of the Republic has not been formally announced, but is expected someday.

“We must be able to carry out innovations in France in a controlled, open, transparent manner, by giving democratic guarantees that make it possible to advance in practices and for both productivity and better resistance to threats and risks, NBT are part of. Emmanuel Macron announced during a roundtable meeting with the Young Farmers Union in September 2021.

In July 2018, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruled that organisms resulting from new genome editing techniques, or NBT (new reproductive technology), “fell, in principle, within the purview of the GMO Directive” which prescribed a set of rules for authorization. does. Traceability, labeling and monitoring.

But the European Union paved the way for the easing of these rules for NBT at the end of April 2021. A report commissioned by the European Commission comes in favor of the new law. According to its authors, the GMO directive is “not optimized” for “scientific and technological progress”.

The action, which continued in some of the pavilions of the Salon de l’Agriculture, spread peacefully towards the end of the morning.

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