France orders national investigation amid Europe tainted egg scandal

PARIS - France has ordered a national investigation into all egg-product manufacturers in the wake of Europe's insecticide-tainted egg scandal, French Agriculture Minister Stephane Travert said on Wednesday.

The minister said the move comes in a hope to have "much more fruitful and rapid exchanges of information" with his EU partners in the future.

"We want to ensure that we can establish better control and transparency reports with our partners, because the batches of tainted egg come from both the Netherlands and Belgium," Travert said.

The French minister also criticized the two countries, where eggs were contaminated with the insecticide Fipronil, for not informing France earlier about the problem.

In total, about 80 egg-product-procession factories all over France would be involved in this national investigation, according to local media.

On Monday, France's Agriculture ministry confirmed that 13 batches of Dutch eggs contaminated with the insecticide Fipronil have been delivered to two different egg-product manufacturing factories in central-western France between July 11 and July 26.

On July 28, a poultry farm, located in Pas de Calais in northern France, was placed under surveillance after the farmer reported to French authorities that his Belgian supplier used the pesticide containing Fipronil.