GM corn ban stays put

France's highest administrative body, the state council, rejected the challenge from nine plaintiffs including a maize producers' association backed by the US agribusiness giant Monsanto, which produces the strain.

"The judge has rejected the complaint," said a spokesperson for the state council. "There are no serious doubts as to the legality of the decisions" to ban the use of MON810 strain of corn, the only GM crop grown in France.

The French government in February officially banned the GM crop after a watchdog authority said it had "serious doubts" about the product in a report that has been controversial even among the scientists who put it together.

France's provisional high authority on GM organisms pointed to what it described as "a certain number of new scientific facts relating to a negative impact on flora and fauna".

In its ruling, the state council said the government was right to resort to the ban as a precautionary measure, given concerns about the possible public health effects.

Reacting to the decision, a Monsanto spokesperson said he was disappointed but expressed hope that the company's arguments will prevail when the state council issues a final ruling in the case at a later date.

EU standards

France invoked a EU safeguard clause to bar the maize that gives an EU member state authority to ban a GM crop provided it has scientific evidence to back this decision.

France this month proposed replacing the EU's system for authorising GM crops with tougher standards which take into account a wide range of environmental and safety factors.

Last year, 22 000 hectares were sown with the product - less than one percent of the sown acreage for corn in France.

- AFP