Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are human-made chemicals used since the late 1940s to mass produce the non-stick, waterproof and stain-resistant treatments that coat everything from frying pans to umbrellas, carpets and dental floss.
Because PFAS take an extremely long time to break down -- earning them their "forever" nickname -- they have seeped into the soil and groundwater, and from there into the food chain and drinking water.
These chemicals have been detected virtually everywhere on Earth, from the top of Mount Everest to inside human blood and brains.
Chronic exposure to even low levels of the chemicals has been linked to liver damage, high cholesterol, reduced immune responses, low birthweights and several kinds of cancer.
The French law, approved by lawmakers in February, bans the production, import or sale from January 2026 of any product for which an alternative to PFAS already exists.
These include cosmetics and ski wax, as well as clothing containing the chemicals, except certain "essential" industrial textiles.
A ban on non-stick saucepans was removed from the draft law after intense lobbying from the owners of French manufacturer Tefal.
It will also make French authorities regularly test drinking water for all kinds of PFAS.
There are thousands of different PFAS and certain ones have been banned since 2019 under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, but China and the United States are not among the more than 150 signatories.
This includes perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), used since the 1950s by US company DuPont to manufacture its non-stick Teflon coating for textiles and other everyday consumer products.
The Stockholm Convention also bans perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), known for its use as a waterproofing agent by the US group 3M, which has been heavily restricted since 2009.
A handful of US states, including California, implemented a ban on the intentional use of PFAS in cosmetics beginning in 2025, and several other states are slated to follow in 2026.
Denmark will ban the use of PFAS in clothing, footwear and certain consumer products with waterproofing agents beginning on July 1, 2026.
Denmark has banned the use of PFAS in food packaging since 2020.
The European Union has been studying a possible ban on the use of PFAS in consumer products, but has not yet presented or implemented such a regulation.
France pushes back plastic cup ban by four years
Paris, France (AFP) Dec 30, 2025 -
The French government on Tuesday postponed a ban on plastic throwaway cups by four years to 2030 because of difficulties finding alternatives.
The ban was meant to start on January 1. But the ministry for ecological transition said that results from a recent review into the "technical feasibility of eliminating plastic from cups" justified pushing back the deadline.
It said in an official decree that a new review would be carried out in 2028 of "progress made in replacing single-use plastic cups". It added that the ban would now start January 1, 2030, when companies would have 12 months to get rid of their stock.
France has gradually rolled out bans on single-use plastic products over the past decade as environmental campaigners step up warnings about their impact on rivers and oceans.
A 2020 law set a deadline of 2040 to eliminate all single-use plastics. A ban on plastic bags for loads of less than 1.5 kilogrammes (3.3 pounds) of 30 fruit and vegetables was introduced in 2022 and has dramatically changed supermarket habits.
The postponement marks "yet another step backwards in the fight against plastic pollution, under pressure from lobby groups," said Manon Richert, a spokeswoman for the environmental group Zero Waste France
She said "the argument put forward about technical feasibility is shaky" because solutions exist but haven't been widely adopted due a lack of investment and an inadequate regulatory framework.
Environmental campaigners say the phase out of single-use plastics has been too slow.
At the start of 2024 the groups Zero Waste France, Surfrider Foundation Europe, Les Amis de la Terre, France Nature Environnement and No Plastic in my Sea issued a failing grade in their report card for implementation of the 2020 law.
They pointed to measures which had not been implemented and government decrees which limited the impact of the law.
Meanwhile, the government's DGCCRF consumer protection agency said in a report released last year that almost a fifth of about 100 companies it checked in 2023 were breaching regulations on the production or use of single-use plastic items.
Its investigators said some marketed plastic-free products that in reality contained plastic, and some changed the name of the item in a bid to get around the ban.
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