On the day French MPs gave themselves a round of applause for approving legislation to reintroduce a banned pesticide last month, a figure rose from the public gallery to shout: “You are supporters of cancer … and we will make it known.”
Fleur Breteau made it known. Her outburst and appearance – she lost her hair during chemotherapy for breast cancer – boosted a petition against the “Duplomb law” to well over 2m signatures.
On Thursday, France’s constitutional court struck down the government’s attempt to reintroduce the pesticide acetamiprid – a neonicotinoid banned in France in 2018 but still used as an insecticide in other EU countries as well as the UK – in a judgment that took everyone by surprise. The ruling said the legislature had undermined “the right to live in a balanced and healthy environment” enshrined in France’s environmental charter.
For Breteau, 50, a battle is won but the struggle goes on. “The law is a symptom of a sick system that poisons us. The Duplomb law isn’t the real problem. It’s aggravating an already catastrophic system,” she said.
“We are living in a toxic world and need a revolution to break the chain of contamination in everything … If people don’t react we’ll find ourselves in a world where we cannot drink water or eat food that is uncontaminated, where a slice of buttered bread or a cup of tea poisons us. It will be a silent world, without animals, without insects, without birds.
“We are accused of politicising cancer, of weaponising the disease. Yes, that is exactly what we’re doing because that is what’s necessary.”
In an interview with the Guardian between radiotherapy treatments hours before the court’s decision, Breteau explained the “injustice and anger” she felt on learning that the government planned to reintroduce the pesticide, and how it prompted her to create the Cancer Colère (Cancer Anger) collective.
She was in hospital for treatment for the second bout of cancer in three years when the bill was approved by the national assembly’s upper house, the Sénat.
“I was having chemotherapy and it was really hard. I thought this law would never pass, that it would be impossible. When I learned senators had voted for it, I was filled with an intense anger,” Breteau said. “And the more I looked at the figures for cancer cases, the angrier I became.”
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