The French government has pledged to do all in its power to uphold a ban on cultivating genetically modified maize. French officials this week confirmed they would continue attempts to resist growing Monsanto’s MON810 GM maize on their territory; the announcement follows rulings by the European Court of Justice in September and Conseil d’Etat in November, which found France’s first veto to be illegal.

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On Friday, the government released a statement insisting that Environment and Agriculture Ministers will uphold the cultivation ban despite the rulings of the ECJ and State Council (the country’s highest court). The courts found France’s prohibition to be unjustified because the French government had not followed proper procedure.

The announcement was made just days before German agribusiness BASF announced it would cease research and development of genetically modified crops in the EU. Citing overwhelming hostility to the technology in Europe, the company stated it would move its biotech research units to the United States in search of other markets, rather than pursue technologies with wider public support.

BASF said it would withdraw its GM potato ‘Amflora’ from the market, leaving MON810 as the only GM crop licensed for cultivation in the bloc. However, five other EU states have also outlawed the maize; Germany, Greece, Austria, Luxemburg and Hungary also oppose the plant.

Although GM supporters in politics and industry claim the technology is a vital tool, necessary to feed the growing world population, detractors claim the crops, which are the intellectual property of large companies, risk taking agriculture down an avenue of corporate domination, away from sustainable measures such as seed saving, which are necessary to produce more food whilst impacting less on the environment. Calls for open source GM, for more sensitive application where local varieties of crops are require drought resistance, have so far gone unanswered.

They also claim GM crops need further testing and that at present they risk passing their traits on to surrounding crops, affecting organic systems and can lead to the development of resistant pests and diseases.

Welcoming the French government’s announcement, Pete Riley, spokesperson for campaign group GM Freeze, said, "This is yet another indication that the science underpinning the EU approvals process does not have the confidence of most citizens. In addition to health and environmental concerns, other basic problems remain unresolved, such as how to prevent the contamination of crops and honey through pollen movement or human error, maintaining GM-free agricultural seeds and, critically, who is liable when things go wrong."

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