French health authorities have found that nearly half of all residents are exposed to dangerous levels of cadmium — a proven carcinogen — primarily through staple foods such as bread, cereals, pasta and potatoes, with contamination rates three to four times higher than in most other European countries. The country's health and food safety agency ANSES (Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l'alimentation) has warned for 15 years that permissive limits on cadmium in phosphate fertilisers, set at 90 mg/kg compared to an EU ceiling of 60 mg/kg and an ANSES-recommended threshold of 20 mg/kg, have allowed the toxic metal to accumulate steadily in French soils — much of it traced to high-cadmium phosphate imports from Morocco and Tunisia with roots in France's colonial-era mining arrangements. The crisis has been deepened by political inertia and geopolitical entanglements, including a controversial €350 million loan by the French Development Agency to OCP (Morocco's state phosphate monopoly), while the government's proposed timeline for reaching safer fertiliser limits — not until 2038 — has been condemned by scientists and doctors as dangerously inadequate.