Talk:France

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Discussion for: France • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

France is about cannabis in France, covering metropolitan France; Réunion, New Caledonia and the other overseas territories have their own pages. It covers hemp as a fibre crop from medieval retting pits to the present industry; the Sarthe and the Loire valley, where the crop held on into the 1960s; naval demand and the Corderie Royale at Rochefort; Rabelais's Pantagruelion; General Menou's order of 1800 in Egypt and hashish in Paris in the 1840s; the laws of 1916 and 1970 and the rules in force in October 2026 on use, hemp, cannabidiol and medical cannabis; French hemp breeding; and figures on use and seizures. The tables of growing regions, growing areas and accessions fill from pages that name France as their country.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources

• Hemp history: Dufour (1961, L'Information géographique), read on Persée, for the national area series and the Sarthe; the hemp issue of the Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l'Ouest (vol. 127, no. 3, 2020), read on OpenEdition: Llinares (introduction), Plouviez (navy supply), Corre (Brest), Le Goué-Sinquin (Vitré), Besselièvre (Brittany) and Bertin (the Sarthe). Monguilan (1989, Provence historique) for Necker's inquiry of 1779. The archaeological notice for Vimont (ADLFI, 2022). The history page of the Corderie Royale at Rochefort.
• Rabelais: the Tiers Livre, chapters XLIX–LII, in Marty-Laveaux's edition (1870), which prints the text of 1552, with his commentary (1881) for the date of the first edition and the identification of the Pantagruelion as hemp; Humbley (2020) on Rabelais's botanical vocabulary. All read in transcription (Wikisource, HAL).
• Hashish: Pointeau-Lagadec's entry in DicoPolHiS (Le Mans Université) for Menou's order of 9 October 1800; Moreau, Du hachisch et de l'aliénation mentale (1845), in the Internet Archive text, whose title page is partly garbled in the OCR; Gautier, Le Club des Hachichins, in the Revue des Deux Mondes (tome 13, 1846, pp. 520–535), dated 1 February 1846 by the review's general index; Baudelaire, Les Paradis artificiels (1860), in the BnF scan on the Internet Archive.
• The 1916 law: Yvorel (2016, Psychotropes), which prints the law of 12 July 1916 (Journal officiel, 14 July 1916, p. 6254) and table B of the decree of 14 September 1916. The Journal officiel itself was not reached.
• Modern industry: Thouminot (2015) and Bertucelli (2013, 2015), all in OCL and checked against Crossref; FranceAgriMer's sector sheet of January 2026 (figures for 2024, credited on the sheet to InterChanvre and Agreste); the history page of La Chanvrière.
• Law today: the EUDA overview of penalties (updated 4 September 2024); the Conseil constitutionnel decision 2026-915 DC and a legal news report of 26 August 2026 for law no. 2026-798; an Assemblée nationale bill of 2021 for the fixed fine of 200 euros from 1 September 2020; a government answer in the Assemblée nationale of 28 April 2026 on hemp and cannabidiol; the judgment of the Court of Justice in case C-663/18, from the EU Publications Office; legal news reports for the Conseil d'État orders of 24 January and 29 December 2022; the ANSM page on the medical cannabis trial (updated 20 April 2026) and a Senate written question of 22 January 2026; the UN Treaty Collection. The consolidated text of article L3421-1 of the public health code is cited from a mirror of the official code.
• Use and seizures: the OFDT summary page on cannabis and its national report to the EUDA (2024, 2023 data).

Where the sources differ

• The 19th-century peak. Dufour (1961) and Bertin (2020) give about 176,000 hectares in 1840. Bertucelli (2013) gives "près de 150 000 ha" for the 19th-century peak, without a year. The page follows Dufour.
• La Chanvrière de l'Aube. The cooperative's own history dates its founding to 15 February 1973; Bertucelli (2013) gives 1974. The page gives both.
• INRA and hemp breeding. Thouminot (2015) dates the work at INRA Montpellier from the early 1950s to the early 1970s; Bertucelli (2015) gives the 1960s to 1980. The page gives both.
• The THC limit. Thouminot gives 0.3 per cent for the first FNPC varieties and 0.2 per cent from 2000; FranceAgriMer (2026) and the government answer of 2026 give 0.3 per cent as the present limit. The page states the limits by date.
• Construire en Chanvre was founded in 1998 according to La Chanvrière and in 1999 according to Bertucelli (2015); the page does not use the date.

Not used, and why

• The Club des Hashischins as a society. Its dates (about 1844–1849) and list of members circulate mainly through encyclopedias; no peer-reviewed account was read. The page uses only Gautier's own description and Moreau's book.
• Baudelaire's Du vin et du haschisch. The date of 1851 for its first publication was not found in a source read.
• France's rank in European cannabis use. The OFDT relays a figure of 21.8 per cent for young adults in 2021 as the top of the European range, while the EMCDDA table of 2023 gives France 19.2 per cent, below Czechia and Italy. No rank is stated.
• Hemp before the 13th century and regional figures for Anjou, Brittany or the Dauphiné by year were not found in the sources read.
• Genebank holdings of old French hemp are not described: the one record read (a variety named Fibrimon 56, of French provenance, at Ustymivka in Ukraine) does not say what it is.
• Guba (2020), Taming Cannabis: Drugs and Empire in Nineteenth-Century France, whose second chapter treats Menou's order, could not be read.