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Two witnesses told Franceinfo that they had inhaled metam sodium vapors near a Finistère field after its ban. The farmer denies, the gendarmes went there to investigate.
"My eyes were stinging, my throat was burning." While walking on Thursday, November 1 at Cléder (Finistère), at a place called Kerveyer, our witness breathes funny vapors that he identifies as emanations of metam sodium, the pesticide suspended since October 26 after several intoxications in Maine -and-Loire and to … Cléder and since finally banned by ANSES. "I come from a family of farmers, products, I know", explains this person to franceinfo. Excited by what he perceives as illegal spreading, our witness calls the gendarmerie, then contacts franceinfo.
The photos he has given us do not allow to confirm 100% of his words. But they are compatible with a metam-sodium spreading: we see strips of soil similar to those prepared for chews, carefully smoothed with a roller that makes it possible to bury this very volatile product in the soil. The day before, Wednesday, October 31, a second witness told Franceinfo to have inhaled the vapors of the product by pbading the field. "The smell, we know it, it's been years that we live with"he confides to us.
This field is the property of GAEC Guillerm, a market gardening company condemned in 2015 to 1,500 euros in fines and 46,000 euros in damages for "watercourse pollution" at … metam sodium. Heavy rains carried the product into the river and killed all the fish, including those from a nearby fish farm, as franceinfo said a few weeks ago. Contacted by Franceinfo, Gerard Guillerm denies having braved the forbidden. "It's very simple, my son put Roundup and straw with pine resin, it smelled of pine resin"he says. It is this smell that would have inconvenienced "the person who called the gendarmes".
It's very strong, the mix is a bit like pine candy.Gerard Guillermat franceinfo
Contacted, the gendarmerie simply acknowledges having intervened on Thursday November 1st. The prefecture of Finistère specifies that a "control is in progress", via the Departmental Directorate of Population Protection (DDPP). GAEC Guillerm has given a slightly different version to the state authorities: it would be metam sodium, but it would have been widespread before the deadline (October 26th). While waiting to see more clearly, the explanation of pine resin is certainly smile both our witnesses. "Obviously, he will not tell you that it's metam-sodium", ping the first. "I'm not going to tell you anything, I'm just going to laugh about it"slip the second, before letting go: "It's far-fetched."
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