kitchen utensils excluded from the bill
Their trip will not have been in vain. In the aftermath of the massive demonstration of employees and members of the management of the SEB group Place des Invalides in Paris, the National Assembly this Thursday reduced the scope of the bill from environmentalist deputy Nicolas Thierry on the ban on perennial pollutants (PFAS) to exclude kitchen utensils.
This text initially planned to prohibit the manufacture, import, export and placing on the market of certain products which contain these eternal pollutants which are particularly resistant and dangerous to health by 1er January 2026. According to the Assembly’s new version, only cosmetics, textiles and ski wax will be concerned, against the advice of the government which requested the withdrawal of the entire text.
SEB special amendment?
For hours, MPs from all sides and the Minister of Industry Roland Lescure fought over this bill during the environmentalist parliamentary niche. And the name of the SEB group, whose head office is in Écully (Rhône), was never very far away.
Indeed, the group which produces small household appliances and kitchen utensils would be the main ones affected by this ban due to a certain type of PFAS, PTFE, used in the manufacture of its non-stick pans in particular. Some 3,000 jobs would be directly threatened, according to management.
The Minister of Industry, Roland Lescure, was this Thursday the first defender of an exemption for this sector: “This morning, it’s like in Harry PotterSEB is the one whose name we must not pronounce,” he said, half amused, half annoyed.
“But it is an exemplary company from an environmental point of view. They stopped using PFOA in 2012 while the European Union only banned this PFAS in 2020.” And the minister referred the decision to the ongoing work of the European Union within the framework of the Reach regulation on chemicals to determine whether the PTFE used by SEB is as “likely harmless” as it claims.
” We do not have the time “
For the environmentalist MP Charles Fournier, who spoke in support of his colleague Nicolas Thierry, we must get ahead of the European Union. ” We do not have the time. Yes, we are Europeans, but we cannot make a hypothetical bet that the regulation adopted will be ambitious. We must not brandish the scarecrow of unemployment. We will continue to make pans. But these chains will have to be changed. This is reasonable by 2026.”
An unhearable argument for the Renaissance deputies, Les Républicains and the National Rally. “This law represents a terrible threat to our industry, it would condemn the flagship of French industry,” said the RN deputy for Haute-Saône Émeric Salmon, who notably pointed out the SEB site in Rumilly in… Savoie .
All recommended, like Pierre Vatin (LR), to wait for European regulations so as to “not be the only EU country to implement over-transposition”. Some proposed 2030, ecologists accepted 2027… Finally the majority simply had the paragraph on kitchen utensils deleted. Tefal employees can therefore breathe easy, for the moment.
