PFAS: France passes one of the most ambitious laws in the world.
French MPs have given final approval to a law designed to protect the public from the risks posed by persistent pollutants.
Just over a month ago, in the wake of revelations about the exorbitant costs of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkylated substances) pollution, all of Europe’s environmental and health organisations wrote to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urging her to “put an end to the worst pollution in human history” by banning them, as she had pledged to do in the European Green Pact’s “zero pollution” strategy for 2022.
France is preparing to take the lead. On Thursday 20 February, members of parliament voted in favour of a bill to protect the public from the risks posed by PFAS. Despite amendments tabled by the right-wing Rassemblement National and the Union des Droites pour la République to block the text, it was finally adopted after a first reading in the National Assembly and then in the Senate.
In the relatively short space of two and a half years, thanks to the efforts of parliamentarians, NGOs, academics and investigative journalists, an issue that had been under the radar has been brought to the forefront of public debate to the extent that France now has one of the most ambitious laws on the subject.
Read the article in Le Monde (French, paywall)
See also the statement by Canada’s Environmental Defence: France Leads the Way on Turning off the Tap on PFAS “Forever Chemicals”
