What do you call a system that allows known toxins into our food, water, and everyday lives — and then looks the other way as cancer rates rise?
In France, one woman didn’t mince words. Fleur Breteau, undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, stood up in parliament and called the lawmakers who backed a pesticide comeback “supporters of cancer.” Her outburst helped spark a national movement and forced the courts to intervene, striking down the law in the name of public health and environmental rights.
To be clear, Breteau wasn’t fighting glyphosate. Her battle was against the Duplomb law, which sought to reintroduce acetamiprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide banned in France since 2018. But her message — that the law was “a symptom of a sick system that poisons us” — resonates far beyond one chemical.
Here in New Zealand, we don’t yet have our Fleur. But we do have a problem. Glyphosate-based weedkillers such as Roundup are still sprayed across our parks, paddocks, and food crops. And if MPI gets its way, the legal limit for glyphosate residues in our food could rise by up to 9,900%. The question is: how much longer will we stay silent?
The Right to Live in a Balanced and Healthy Environment
When France’s constitutional court struck down the Duplomb law, it didn’t just stop the return of a single pesticide. It invoked something much deeper — a legal recognition of the right to live in a balanced and healthy environment, enshrined in the French environmental charter.
It’s a powerful concept. Imagine if New Zealand had such a right built into law — a safeguard that could halt chemical approvals or force environmental reviews when public health or biodiversity is at risk. Instead, we rely on a regulatory system that appears increasingly willing to prioritise industry convenience over long-term safety.
Right now, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is proposing to raise the maximum allowable glyphosate residue on some food crops by up to 9,900%. That’s not a typo. If approved, it would allow 100 times more glyphosate on wheat, barley, oats, and lentils than previously permitted — not because it’s been proven safer, but because it aligns with international trade, deregulated production, and chemical efficiency.
At the same time, the Government is advancing its Gene Technology Bill, which would strip away many of the current protections around genetically modified organisms (GMOs). If passed, it could open the floodgates to unregulated GMO crops — many of them engineered specifically to survive repeated applications of herbicides like glyphosate.
Raise the allowable glyphosate limits, then deregulate the crops engineered to absorb more of it — is this really the direction we want our food system to go?
Fleur Breteau warned that her fight in France wasn’t just about one pesticide. “The law is a symptom of a sick system that poisons us,” she said. Here in New Zealand, we may be witnessing a similar pattern — quietly unfolding, but with far-reaching consequences.
The Silent World Warning
Fleur Breteau didn’t just speak about cancer. She painted a chilling picture of where inaction could lead:
“We’ll find ourselves in a world where we cannot drink water or eat food that is uncontaminated, where a slice of buttered bread or a cup of tea poisons us. It will be a silent world, without animals, without insects, without birds.”
It’s a warning that feels less like hyperbole and more like foreshadowing. Here in New Zealand, glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup are routinely used not just on farms, but in public parks, roadside verges, school grounds, and along waterways. This chemical doesn’t stay put — it drifts, it lingers, and increasingly, it shows up where it doesn’t belong: in honey, in bread, in cereal, in urine.
Meanwhile, our pollinators are in trouble. Our rivers are in decline. Our soils are losing microbial life. And every time we raise the acceptable limits of contamination — or deregulate the technologies that increase chemical use — we move one step closer to Fleur’s “silent world.”
This isn’t just about pesticides or glyphosate. It’s about the accumulated effect of decades of decisions that treat contamination as an acceptable cost of production. As if a bit of poison here, a trace of toxicity there, is something we can all just learn to live with.
But what if we can’t?
Cancer Trends: Rising Where They Shouldn’t Be
When Fleur Breteau learned that French lawmakers had voted to bring back a banned pesticide while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, she didn’t just feel betrayed — she felt enraged. And the more she looked into the cancer statistics, the angrier she became.
In France, cancer cases have doubled since 1990, even as tobacco and alcohol use — the usual culprits — have dropped by 25%. The most disturbing trend? A sharp rise in cancers among children and young adults aged 15 to 39.
These aren’t isolated findings. Similar patterns are emerging globally, and New Zealand is no exception. Early-onset colorectal cancer is rising, particularly among Māori under 50. Breast cancer remains prevalent. And quietly sitting in the background is another red flag:
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in the world.
Why does that matter? Because glyphosate exposure has been repeatedly linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, including in landmark court cases in the U.S., where juries have awarded billions in damages to plaintiffs who developed the disease after years of Roundup use.
Here, those links are downplayed. The burden of proof is shifted back to the public. Regulators say there’s no “definitive proof” that any specific case of cancer is caused by glyphosate — and until there is, they keep approving it.
But as Breteau points out, that’s exactly how the system protects itself:
“They want us to prove the cancer of this or that person is directly linked to this or that pesticide.”
It’s the same strategy Big Tobacco used for decades. Cast doubt. Demand impossible certainty. Keep the product on the market — and blame the victims when the harm becomes undeniable.
The Tobacco Playbook All Over Again
The tactics aren’t new. In fact, they’re eerily familiar.
When scientists first exposed the dangers of cigarettes, the tobacco industry didn’t bother disproving the evidence—they just manufactured doubt. They hired shadow scientists, spread misinformation, and made health concerns seem optional. Result? Decades of preventable suffering.
Today, the pesticide and agritech lobbies are replaying the same strategy.
Just look at what unfolded in Australia. In a landmark ruling, the Federal Court of Australia—after a massive 322-page judgment—dismissed a class-action lawsuit claiming glyphosate (Roundup) causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). The court concluded the “weight of scientific evidence does not support a link” between glyphosate and cancer.
With that, all pending Roundup cases in Australia were closed. Bayer hailed it as “another glyphosate victory” and lauded the decision as aligning with global regulatory bodies that have found the chemical safe.
But here’s the irony and the danger:
- The dismissal was based on absence of proof, not proof of absence. As Justice Michael Lee noted, there wasn’t enough evidence that Roundup causes NHL—but that isn’t the same as proving it doesn’t.
- It looks less like a judicial ruling and more like a clean sweep for corporate interests.
- If regulators say glyphosate is safe based on this, we lose the space to demand deeper scrutiny—especially as new studies link glyphosate to cancer and other illnesses.
This mirrors exactly what happened with Big Tobacco: delay, doubt, and dismissal—until the harm is too obvious to ignore.
Which brings us back to New Zealand.
When officials propose raising allowable glyphosate residues by 9,900%, while simultaneously deregulating the very crops engineered to survive those chemicals—our system is doing much more than tweaking thresholds. It’s protecting the playing field for industry.
Fleur Breteau’s words resonate just as powerfully here:
“They want us to prove the cancer of this or that person is directly linked to this or that pesticide.”
That’s not a bug—it’s the feature.
Solutions Exist, But They’re Ignored
If all of this sounds bleak, it’s important to remember one thing: it doesn’t have to be this way.
There are farmers — here in New Zealand and around the world — already proving that it’s possible to grow food without drenching the land in synthetic chemicals. Organic, regenerative, and low-input systems aren’t fringe experiments. They’re working models. What they lack isn’t evidence — it’s support.
But instead of listening to these farmers and investing in safer systems, policymakers seem more focused on removing protections to make way for a new wave of unproven and risky technologies — from gene-edited crops designed to survive chemical saturation, to novel pesticides rushed to market with incomplete safety data. These aren’t upgrades. They’re gambles — taken at the expense of public health, ecological stability, and consumer trust.
In France, Fleur Breteau made this point clear:
“There are solutions — farmers who use healthy agricultural methods, who respect animals and nature. We must listen to them and scientists, but we have to confront politicians and industrialists.”
She’s right. It’s not enough to highlight what’s wrong. We also have to fight for what’s right — and demand that our food system reward those who protect life, not just those who profit from chemicals.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not just glyphosate that’s on trial. It’s the entire mindset that treats contamination as business as usual — and pretends there’s no alternative.
Where This Leaves Us
In France, one woman’s defiant voice cracked through the noise. It took a cancer diagnosis, a brutal round of chemotherapy, and a shocking parliamentary betrayal to push her over the edge — but when Fleur Breteau stood up and called lawmakers “supporters of cancer,” the public finally started listening.
Her outburst forced a national reckoning. It inspired a grassroots movement. And it reminded people that staying silent while the system poisons us isn’t neutrality — it’s complicity.
So what about New Zealand?
Our government is proposing to raise allowable glyphosate residues in food by 9,900%, while simultaneously advancing a Gene Technology Bill that could remove many of the protections against unregulated GMOs. They’re not doing this because the science is settled or the public demanded it. They’re doing it because they think we won’t push back.
Maybe they think we’re too busy.
Too trusting.
Too small to fight a global system.
Maybe they even believe they’re immune — that their food is somehow cleaner, their risks lower, their choices insulated. But they’re not. None of us are.
Every supermarket shopper.
Every parent packing lunchboxes.
Every farmer caught between conscience and compliance.
We all live under the same system. The only question is whether we’ll challenge it before the damage becomes irreversible — before the “silent world” Fleur warned about becomes our new normal.
Because history shows that change doesn’t start with institutions. It starts with people who’ve had enough.
It’s Time to Speak Up
If there’s ever been a moment to raise your voice — this is it.
Don’t wait until your food is contaminated (any more than it already is), your health is compromised, or your children are asking why no one did anything. By then, it will be too late. Because what’s being proposed right now — higher glyphosate limits, deregulated gene-edited crops, fewer safety checks — affects all of us.
Silence today is consent tomorrow.
So don’t stay silent. Don’t wait for someone else to act.
Start with a simple question: Have I made my voice heard?
- Contact your local council and ask about weed management policies:
New Zealand’s Regional Councils Directory » - Write to your MP and ask where they stand on glyphosate, gene tech reform, and your right to uncontaminated food:
Find Your Local MP »
You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to be one more person who speaks up.
Because when enough of us do, the system has to listen — whether it wants to or not.
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Resources & References
If this article raised questions for you — good. That’s how change starts. Below are selected articles, reports, and news sources that expand on the issues covered above. We encourage you to read widely, think critically, and follow the links wherever they lead.
Key News & Background
Le Monde – Success of French anti‑pesticide petition revives interest in the political tool
A student‑led petition became a historic political moment—more than 2 million signatures, one of the highest in French history—highlighting the power of grassroots democratic tools.
The Guardian – The cancer patient who inspired French movement to block reintroduction of pesticide
Fleur Breteau’s protest against the Duplomb law and her creation of Cancer Colère
Reuters – Australian court dismisses glyphosate cancer lawsuit
Justice Michael Lee rules against Roundup-NHL link in class action
Time – The Race to Explain Why More Young Adults Are Getting Cancer
New Zealand included in a global rise in colorectal cancer among younger populations; environmental toxins and gut health are under investigation
Glyphosate & Cancer Research
IARC Monograph on Glyphosate (2015)
World Health Organization’s cancer agency classifies glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2A)
Download summary » [PDF]
Scientific American – Weedkiller Glyphosate Linked to Cancer
Summarises meta‑analysis showing a 41 % increased risk of non‑Hodgkin lymphoma
New Zealand-Specific Data & Concerns
No More Glyphosate NZ – Why Raising MRLs Threatens Public Health
Analysis of MPI’s proposal to increase allowable glyphosate residues by up to 9,900%
No More Glyphosate NZ – Unequal Risk: Māori, Glyphosate Exposure, and Colorectal Cancer
Exploration of occupational and community exposure among Māori and rising early-onset cancer rates
New Zealand Parliament – Gene Technology Bill
Track legislative changes and status of the proposed Gene Technology Bill
Stay Curious. Stay Critical. Stay Involved.
These resources are just a starting point. Don’t take our word for it — read the science, explore the legal rulings, and ask the uncomfortable questions. Because the more informed we are, the harder we are to ignore.
Image Source & Attribution
We’re grateful to the talented photographers and designers whose work enhances our content. The feature image on this page is by KovalenkovPetr.
