France backs non-GMO regulation for crop gene-editing in EU

FILE PHOTO: French Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie speaks during an interview with Reuters at the Agriculture Ministry in Paris, France, December 1, 2020. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo

PARIS (Reuters) - France sees crops developed using gene-editing techniques as different to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and opposes a European Union court decision to put them under strict GMO regulations, the country's agriculture minister said.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in 2018 that mutagenesis, among so-called New Breeding Techniques (NBT) based on targeted editing of genes, fall under rules applying to GMOs that incorporate DNA from a different species.