A petition against new rules allowing farmers to use a banned pesticide had gained more than 1 million signatures by Sunday night, less than two weeks after it was launched.
La Loi Duplomb – named after one of its advocates Laurent Duplomb – was passed in the French parliament on 8 July.
It paves the way for the reintroduction of acetamiprid – a pesticide outlawed in France since 2018 but used throughout the rest of the European Union.
But two days after politicians sanctioned Duplomb's brainchild, Eléonore Pattery, a 23-year-old student from Bordeaux, south-western France. started a petition calling for the law to be scrapped.
Pattery's claims Duplomb's new law is a scientific, ethical, environmental and health aberration. Beekeepers claim acetamipri is lethal for bees.
Debate in parliament
On Saturday, the number of people backing Pattery's proposals passed the 500,000 signature mark.
Under French rules, once a petition crosses that threshold and has verified signatures from throughout the country, the Assemblée Nationale has the right to hold a public debate on the contents of the petition.
The regulations also state that even if a petition gathers 500,000 names, it does not mean that the legislation will be reviewed or repealed.
Late on Sunday, the number of signatures had risen to 1,159,000.
Farmers, particularly of beetroot and nuts, insist that they need to use the pesticide against the insects and animals attacking their crops. They say that not being allowed to deploy the chemical is unfair as competitors throughout Europe can use it.
'Realigning French rules with Europe'
Frank Menonville, a UDI senator for the Meuse region in north-eastern France and one of the law's principal backers, told BFMTV: "There's nothing revolutionary in this law. We're aligning French rules with everything that it is legal on a European level.
"If the National Assembly wants to reopen the debate, that's not a problem for me. The measures were debated in the senate and adopted at the end of January.
"In the National Assembly there seems to be a policy of activism and creating fear."
Last month just before the law went through parliament, several thousand demonstrators – including farmers, environmental organisations and scientists – rallied across France calling for the bill to be withdrawn.
Olivar Calvo, agriculture campaigner at Greenpeace France, said: "We are all going to be affected by the consequences of this deadly and toxic law.
"For weeks now, civil society has been united in its opposition to this proposed law: farmers, scientists, environmental protection organisations and organisations of pesticide victims.
"We are deeply worried about the future but we remain determined and will continue to fight to defend an agricultural model that respects health, farmers and the environment. "
