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Genetically modified maize is unlikely to make it into French fields next year despite the lifting this week of a ban on a U.S. strain, as evidence rises that France will launch new restrictions, observers said on Tuesday.

“The French government keeps and will keep its opposition against the cultivation of the Monsanto 810 maize on our soil,” Sarkozy said during a visit in southwestern France.

France’s State Council justified its decision on Monday to annul the ban saying that the government did not give enough evidence to justify it, knowing that an EU country can only unilaterally ban a GMO if it can scientifically prove its risk for human or animal health or the environment.

Sarkozy, who will face re-election in April although he has not made his candidacy official, said Ecology Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet and Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire were working to implement a new ban on Monsanto’s MON810 that would be based on scientific elements.

While GMOs are widely used in major farm producing countries such as the United States or Brazil, they are unpopular in many European states, with France one of the most outspoken against what some have termed “Frankenstein foods.”

Even if maize growers are mostly in favor of GMOs which they say will protect their crops against pests and adverse weather and boost their yields, this political uncertainty should prompt them to hold off planting.