Public figures demand immediate ban on all chemical pesticides

According to the French newspaper Le Monde, the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo will publish an article on pesticides tomorrow, 12 September. The magazine will publish a statement, signed by lots of public figures, demanding a ban on all chemical pesticides. The signatories, including the Bishop of Troyes, say that they want the poppies back (the red flowers that some of us are old enough to remember growing in agricultural fields): "Nous voulons des coquelicots".

The statement is as strong as it is simple: "We no longer recognise our country; nature is disfigured there. A third of the birds have disappeared in fifteen years, half of the butterflies in twenty years; bees and pollinators die in their billions. Frogs and grasshoppers have vanished; wild flowers are becoming rare. This world that fades away is ours and every colour that succumbs, every light that goes out is an irrevocable pain. Give us back our poppies! Give us back the beauty of the world!"

What is also remarkable is the quote by Dr Pierre-Michel Périnaud, a medical doctor who is leading an association of doctors against pesticides. He said: "A few years ago, I would not have joined such a call; on the contrary I would have supported a more pragmatic approach of examining each product one by one. But what we notice, as knowledge progresses, is that this evaluation system, which industry promotes... does not allow us to evaluate the real risks. It would take half a century to reform this system, which no longer controls anything. To ask for an immediate exit from synthetic pesticides enables us to place ourself in a different framework of action."

See the article in Le Monde here: https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2018/09/11/nous-voulons-des-coquelicots-l-appel-contre-les-pesticides-lance-dans-charlie-hebdo_5353198_3244.html

The official website and call will be published here: https://nousvoulonsdescoquelicots.org/

Journalist Fabrice Nicolino and environmental campaigner François Veillerette's new book carries the same title: Nous voulons des coquelicots ("We want our poppies back"):
https://www.amazon.fr/Nous-voulons-coquelicots-Fabrice-Nicolino/dp/B07F52TZNH