DEEP DIVE: PFAS in Europe: France Makes a Bold Move

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is not a new topic in the French public discourse, but the discussion has heated up, with the French National Assembly voting unanimously on 4 April 2024 to ban the “forever” chemicals from hundreds of products. Two PFAS-related bills, both sponsored by Green MP Nicolas Thierry (Girard), targeted what Thierry called “the largest mass pollution in our history.”

The first bill, Resolution No. 275, calls for revising the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 of the European Union (EU) to tighten control of registration files, speed up evaluation of substances, improve identification of dangerous substances, and integrate the “cocktail effect” idea. The bill also suggests a broadening of the generic risk assessment approach while maintaining proportionate risk control. It suggests “avoiding a too restrictive approach to essential uses to limit exposure to all substances identified as dangerous,” such as endocrine disruptors or PFAS, while promoting “research and development of safe and sustainable alternatives from the design stage.”

Proposal No. 276, the second bill adopted by the National Assembly, is “aimed at protecting the population from the risks linked to perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances” and bans the use of PFAS in any cosmetic product, wax product (for skis), or clothing textile product, except for protective clothing for safety personnel. The ban will extend to all textiles starting on 1 January 2030. Kitchen utensils, namely cookware, which were originally included in the ban, were removed. The change followed pushback from the cookware industry, which utilizes perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in nonstick cookware.

Opposition From the Government, Industry

The French government opposed the bills, as did cookware manufacturer SEB, which lobbied hard for the cookware exemption. The government took the position that the EU should take the lead in banning or tightly regulating PFAS. Supporters of the bill countered that the EU was not moving quickly enough, and France needed to take action now, rather than wait.

As stated in Resolution No. 275, the REACH regulation's process of evaluating, authorizing, and restricting substances was slow and cumbersome, and it was “poor” in identifying dangerous substances and their uses. It suggests the French government bring the proposal before the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in 2024, in collaboration with other EU member states.

More notably, Proposal No. 276, adopted by the country's national assembly on the same day, concerned PFAS directly, essentially banning cosmetic, wax, and textile clothing products containing PFAS from the French market, effective 1 January 2026. The proposal, which is scheduled for a vote by the French Senate on 30 May 2024, applies to the manufacture, import/export, and sale of such products in France.

The bill was preceded by campaigning and protests from French cookware company SEB and its employees, according to RFI. SEB, which manufactures T-Fal cookware, says that the PFAS it uses in its nonstick frying pans - polytetrafluoroethylene - is not dangerous. The cookware giant has more than a dozen facilities in France as part of its global manufacturing base, which drove its total sales of €8,006 million in 2023. The lobbying worked, and cookware was removed from the bill.

Another item that did not make the cut was the idea to create an additional tax of 1% on profits generated by industries releasing PFAS into the environment for companies with an annual turnover of over €50 million.

The final version of the bill requires the French government to propose updated health standards for PFAS in water intended for human consumption within a year of this proposal becoming law and asks the government to make public a map identifying all the sites which may have emitted or are emitting PFAS into the environment. As part of the regulation, the French government would need to come up with a plan to clean up the PFAS-contaminated sites, as well as establish maximum thresholds for PFAS emissions.

These components - like monitoring of tap water and decontamination strategy - appear to be similar to another bill proposed on13 April 2023 in the French parliament, as reported by France 24 on 28 June 2023. But that older bill called for a ban on all products containing PFAS, as opposed to the recently approved bill, which only targets select product categories.

The Persistence of PFAS

The problem with PFAS is that they persist in the environment and are difficult to mitigate and destroy.

The Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) in France supports the comprehensive restriction proposal currently under consideration at the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). It was submitted to ECHA in January 2023 by five national-level authorities from the European Economic Area (EEA). This proposal - from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany - would essentially ban around 10,000 PFAS across the European Union, covering their manufacture, placing on the market and use as such, and as constituent in other substances or in mixtures as well as in articles, above a set concentration limit.

The five countries started preparing the proposal several years ago, and ECHA published it in February 2023.

Also under consideration at ECHA is a proposal for an EU-wide restriction on all PFAS in firefighting foams. Currently, the EU regulates certain types of PFAS under its Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Regulation; REACH; substances of very high concern (SVHC); and Classification, Labeling, and Packaging (CLP) Regulation.

The French Chemicals Industry

For context, in 2022, France ranked No. 2 in EU chemical sales, at 18% of the bloc's total sales of €760 billion, according to Cefic (European Chemical Industry Council). In 2021, while still the second-largest European chemicals producer, France's estimated turnover was €97 billion, including active pharmaceutical ingredients, according to Cefic data.

The country's chemicals industry includes some 3,500 companies, that employ 168,500 workers.

PFAS Investigations – In Academia and the Media

Although researchers have been studying the higher-than-recommended occurrence of PFAS in France for well over a decade - including in the outdoor environment such as in rivers (Boiteux et al., 2012; Munoz et al., 2015; Antignac et al., 2013) - PFAS rose to national and international attention when contaminations were separately reported in Lyon and Rumilly in 2022, according to a 14 September 2023 report by ARTE TV.

On 3 October 2022, it was announced that the three public wells supplying water to the 14,000 inhabitants of Rumilly, a quiet town in south-eastern France, were polluted with very high levels of PFAS, at around 110 to 140 nanograms per liter, the ARTE TV reported. These levels were higher than the EU quality limit of 100 nanograms per liter, which came into effect 1 January 2023.

Notably, the local water quality control authorities found perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in the town’s water supply. PFOA’s health (not the regulatory) limit is even stricter at 75 nanograms per liter. PFOA has been banned in EU since 2020. What prompted authorities to start testing Rumilly’s water supply in August 2022 was a news report by France 2 about PFAS contamination in nearby Lyon, a much bigger city. In May 2022, France 2 published its reporter’s findings of air, water, soil, and even breastmilk being heavily contaminated with PFAS, especially PFOA.

Arkema is one of the main chemical companies involved in the Lyon case – operating in an area known as the Chemical Valley of France. Even though the company started filtering soon after the issue came to light, the presence of PFAS remains an issue in Lyon.

At the government level, the Ministry of Ecological Transition assigned the General Inspectorate for the Environment and Sustainable Development (IGEDD) to create a report on the risks of PFAS on the environment, which IGEDD published in April 2023. The report laid bare major gaps in the monitoring of PFAS in France, much more so than anticipated by the ministry's own prior Action Plan (2023-2027) on PFAS published in January 2023.

As reported by Le Monde on 16 April 2023, IGEDD found that France was monitoring only five PFAS, even though the EU directive recommends checking for 20 different PFAS. The government report highlighted the need to monitor for PFAS in surface water, groundwater, wastewater treatment plant discharge (effluent) including sludge use, and waste incinerators. France has 22,000 wastewater treatment plants and 126 waste incinerators, according to Le Monde.

Perhaps, the most extensive Europe-wide study so far has been led by Le Monde with 17 other media outlets. Funded by Journalismfund Europe, this study resulted in a dedicated website hosting an online map for all of Europe - including its 20 PFAS production facilities, 17,000 PFAS contaminated sites, and 2,300 hotspots ­- as well as a research paper.

For France in particular, this project mapped more than 900 PFAS-contaminated sites across the country, along with the five production facilities it hosts.

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Learn more about the global approach to PFAS: Global PFAS Regulation: A Multi-Pronged Effort to Control Harmful Chemicals