A year ago, France embarked on an ambitious goal: To craft the world’s widest ranging ban on the use of harmful “forever chemicals” in everyday products.
On Friday, that effort culminated in a national ban on PFAS that environmental and health experts hailed as a big step forward, with one notable exception.
After campaigning by the home appliances manufacturer, Tefal — including a rowdy rally by employees wielding pots and pans — nonstick pans and other PFAS-containing cookware were excluded from the ban.
“Victory against PFAS in the National Assembly! France confirms that it can lead the way in protecting public health,” Nicolas Thierry, a politician of France’s Green Party who proposed the ban last year, wrote on Bluesky. Yet the exemption granted to cookware was his “biggest regret,” Mr. Thierry later told Le Monde, the French daily.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of chemicals used in items like nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, cosmetics and firefighting foam. Known commonly as “forever chemicals” because they don’t easily break down in the environment, PFAS can damage the liver and immune system and have also been linked to birth defects, developmental delays and an increased risk of certain cancers.
France’s new law, which goes into effect next year, bans the manufacture, trade and marketing of PFAS-containing cosmetics, footwear, certain textiles and ski wax. From 2030, the ban will cover all textiles containing the chemicals, except for protective clothing worn by firefighters and other professionals.
The law exempts pans and other cookware that use PFAS nonstick coatings, however, after the French manufacturer of Tefal nonstick cookware launched a public campaign to limit the law’s scope. Tefal and its supporters say a ban on use in cookware would threaten jobs, limit choice for consumers and hurt France’s industrial competitiveness.
“Our nonstick coatings are recognized as being safe,” a public poster campaign declared. In April, the company organized a rally near the French parliament, where employees banged on pots, held up signs that read “Don’t touch my pan!” and chanted “Ecology yes, our jobs no.”
“We are fighting because we are within our rights,” Thierry de La Tour d’Artaise, chairman of Groupe SEB, which owns the Tefal brand, said at the rally. The proposed ban, he said, “is bad for the consumer.”
Martin Scheringer, a professor of environmental chemistry at ETH Zurich, a public research university in Switzerland, said it was true that health risks from nonstick cookware itself were not the biggest concern. However, he said, manufacturing of nonstick materials can cause “substantial emissions of PFAS to the environment.”, with harmful effects on health.
Environmental groups also say that safer alternatives exist. And the discovery of PFAS hot-spots near chemical factories and military bases across Europe pointed to the need to rein in the chemicals at the source, said Hélène Duguy, an attorney at the environmental law firm ClientEarth. “We’re going to have to pay so much to clean it up in the future,” she said.
Despite its narrowed scope, the new law makes France the world’s second country after Denmark to ban PFAS in a range of consumer products. Denmark has taken a more piecemeal approach, starting with PFAS in food packaging.
The European Union is considering a wider ban on PFAS chemicals that would cover both industrial and consumer uses, including cookware, a ban that would essentially override the French law. That process is in early stages.
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