France took a radical step towards protecting its declining bee population last Saturday by becoming the first country in Europe to ban all five pesticides researchers believe are killing off the insects. 

The move to ban the five so-called neonicotinoids has been hailed by beekeepers and environmentalists, but cereal and sugar beet farmers warn it could leave them all but defenceless in protecting valuable crops against other harmful insects.

By enforcing the blanket ban the French are taking the EU decision to outlaw the use of three neonicotinoids - clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam - in crop fields starting on December 19 much further.

France has banned these three with the addition of thiacloprid and acetamiprid, outdoors and in greenhouses.

Evidence supporting claims the chemicals contribute to “colony collapse disorder”, a mysterious phenomenon that has seen bee populations decline by up to 90 percent. Scientific studies have shown that neonicotinoids cut bees’ sperm count and scramble their memory and homing skills. Fresh research out this week even suggests that bees can become addicted to the insecticides.

Many French farmers are angry, saying there is not enough evidence that neonicotinoids are responsible for bee decline.

Farmers faced a “dramatic technical dead-end," said France’s biggest farming union FNSEA, calling for exemptions in sectors "where there are no alternatives or insufficient ones”.

The ban "will exacerbate unfair competition with European and non-European producers" still allowed to use the pesticides, they warned.

But a report by France's ANSES public health agency said in May there were "sufficiently effective, and operational" alternatives to the majority of neonicotinoids used in France.

Others believe the ban should go further.

“There are pesticides all over the place,” Fabien Van Hoecke, a beekeeper in Saint-Aloué in Brittany, who lost 86 per cent of his bees over the winter. While the ban was “a good thing, it won’t save us,” he told AFP, predicting that as soon as they are withdrawn, they will be “replaced by others”.