Environmentalists hailed a “huge victory”. Measures to freeze the prices of certain foods were adopted by the National Assembly on Thursday 6 April. Coming from the ranks of the Communists and La France Insoumise (LFI), the two amendments voted on the price freeze take on the appearance of a consolation prize on the left, even if their fate is uncertain during the continuation of the parliamentary shuttle.
Almost all of the bills of the “parliamentary niche” Green MPs had either been rejected or emptied of their substance in committee. The ecologists have thus failed to have their flagship proposal adopted for a food bonus to help the most precarious to cope with inflation, of at least 50 euros per month and per person. The government got the ball back to it, to support local experiments in “cheques” food – a promise from Emmanuel Macron that is slow to materialize.
But amendments from the left were adopted against the advice of the executive, with the support in particular of the RN. One, deposed by the Communists, creates a “inflation basket” for agricultural and food products with prices “fixed”. The other, coming from the LFI ranks, extends to the whole territory a “price-quality shield” in force in the Overseas Territories for food and hygiene products ” indispensable “. The amendment provides at least “price freeze for five seasonal fruits and vegetables”.
“It kills the poorest”
Environmentalists suffered a setback on another measure of the bill under debate, brought by MP Francesca Pasquini. It proposed to ban from 2024 nitro additives in all charcuterie, or at least in cooked ham, “especially popular with children”.
“Nitrite kills the French, and it kills the poorest”launched in the hemicycle the deputy Modem Richard Ramos, who supported the measure before its rejection, denouncing the lobbies of the food industry braking four irons.
After an opinion from the health agency Anses confirming the link between exposure to nitrites and the risk of cancer, the government asked manufacturers at the end of March to lower the doses in cold cuts. But associations are asking to go further. “More than 4,000 cases of stomach and colon cancer could be avoided in France. There is no acceptable dose in our diet”estimate the League against Cancer and the Foodwatch association.
An ecology “not only punitive, but also protective”
Among the four other texts on Thursday’s program, environmentalists have no illusions about the chances of a ban on private jet flights and hunting on Sundays, or access to RSA from the age of 18. The main chance of legislative success concerns the second text on the menu Thursday, aimed at facilitating compensation for victims of the “shrinkage-swelling of clays” in the soil, a phenomenon accentuated by global warming and which damages homes.
He “would radically change the balance of power between insurers and policyholders”who today feel deprived and “drowned in procedures”pleads Sandrine Rousseau, carrier of this text which must show “that ecology is not only punitive, but also protective”.
The leader of the environmental deputies, Cyrielle Chatelain, regretted the opposition of the presidential camp, and in particular of the Renaissance deputies, to the proposals of her group. “There is no new method from the government, it continues to reject absolutely everything that does not come from it”she annoyed, denouncing:
“On nitrites, it is incomprehensible, we are on carcinogenic substances. »
At a time when the executive is advocating a “new method of dialogue”It is “a display of sectarianism”thundered his group, which resigned itself to withdrawing several texts initially on the menu, such as the one on a ban on digital and luminous advertisements in public spaces.