Safer than in the USA? The Reception of Silent Spring in France and the Difficulties in Achieving European Regulations on Pesticides, 1962–1976

Abstract

From having been a net food importer before World War Two, France rapidly became a leading European agricultural producer and the world’s second largest agricultural exporter – a model fueled by extensive use of pesticides. How, then, was the French reception of Rachel Carson’s work on the association of pesticides with health issues and environmental damage? This article constructed a corpus of 288 publications debating Silent Spring from 1962 to 1975 to map the trajectory of the controversy. We also mobilise rich archives collections to document how key actors and institutions endeavoured to control the fire sparked by Printemps silencieux and slow down the progress of new Europe-wide regulations. Lastly, we illuminate how, by 1969–1976, export imperatives and associated market-harmonisation concerns were factors as important as environment and health concerns for explaining the ban of a few molecules and the first 1976 EEC Directive regulating residues levels. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .