France’s lower house of parliament adopted a law on Tuesday prohibiting the cultivation of any variety of genetically modified maize, saying it posed a risk to the environment.
France adopted a decree last month to halt the planting of Monsanto’s insect-resistant MON810 maize, the only GM crop allowed for cultivation in the European Union.
The law also applies to any strain adopted at EU level in future, including another GM variety, Pioneer 1507 developed jointly by DuPont and Dow Chemical, which could be approved by the EU executive later this year after 19 out of 28 member states failed to gather enough votes to block it.
The Socialist government, like its conservative predecessor, has opposed the growing of GM crops because of public suspicion and widespread protests by environmentalists.
“It is essential today to renew a widely shared desire to maintain the French ban,” Jean-Marie Le Guen, the minister in charge of relations with parliament, told the National Assembly.
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