More than 70 mayors and elected officials from France this week called for a moratorium on 5G technology, as resistance to 5G in France grows. The mayors’ main concern, they said, is that “the health risks for living organisms have not been evaluated.”

Michèle Rivasi, a member of the European Parliament (MEP) who is leading the efforts, said she is ready to go to the European Court of Justice on this issue, according to a report in the French media.

In addition to health concerns, according to an article published in French, the mayors and elected officials raised other issues, including:

  • the increase in electromagnetic pollution
  • the environmental impact of the multiplication of digital flows and additional energy requirements in a period when there is an incentive to save energy
  • the significant increase in the need for rare raw materials for the manufacture of new antennas and new communicating objects
  • the reinforcement of desocialization linked to mobile screens and the risk of dehumanization of society

Rivasi is a strong opponent of 5G. In June 2020, she published a report, “ICNIRP: Conflicts of Interest, Corporate Capture and the Push for 5G.”

The International Commission for the Protection Against Non-Ionizing Radiation (ICNIRP) is a private organization whose recommendations for radio frequency guidelines — which deny any harms of wireless technology — have been followed by the World Health Organization and several countries despite the organization’s clear conflicts of interests and ties to the telecom industry.

Concerns about ICNIRP’s conflicts of interest were confirmed in a 2012 decision by the Italian Supreme Court. The court, which ruled that the plaintiff’s brain tumor was caused by a cell phone, also concluded that experts with ICNIRP affiliations “lacked credibility and authority, and as such, were essentially outside the scientific community.”

In 2020, an Italian Court of Appeals decision made even stronger findings regarding ICNIRP and its members.

Rivasi’s report on ICNIRP was written and published with Dr. Kalus Buchner, an MEP  from Germany. Buchner is a scientist who also conducted studies on how radio frequency affects health. His study on the health effects of cell towers showed adverse effects on stress hormones, including on adrenaline and dopamine. Buchner’s study also observed dose response.

This latest action by the mayors is not surprising. The resistance to 5G in France has become a top agenda item for the French Green Party, Europe Écologie Les Verts. During the local June elections, the party gained more power, and its candidates won in major cities, including Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Bordeaux and Strasbourg.

The party resistance to 5G was based mainly on environmental considerations, as it is estimated that 5G would exponentially increase energy consumption.

The call for a moratorium on 5G, led by Rivasi, is focused on health concerns, though it also references the environmental impacts. The resistance to 5G in France also garnered headlines in September, after employees of Orange, one of the biggest cell phone providers in Europe, wrote a letter calling on the company to not deploy 5G.