FNSEA: Arnaud Rousseau candidate for a second term to chair the agricultural union

The fifty-year-old’s candidacy for a second term has been the subject of speculation in recent days, with no other name emerging. His re-election seems certain. Arnaud Rousseau, president of the FNSEA for three years, announced this Wednesday “his intention to run again” at the head of the first French agricultural union, which will hold its congress from March 31 to April 2 in Caen (Calvados), the union told AFP.

The 52-year-old cereal grower, head of a cereal farm of more than 700 ha in Seine-et-Marne passed on to him by his father Jacques, president of the oil giant Avril, sent “a letter to the entire network” to inform it, after having informed the union executives.

Since his election at the head of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions, in April 2023 – traditionally, the union comes together around a single candidacy and he was the only one to seek the succession of Christiane Lambert -, Arnaud Rousseau has been the target of criticism because of his profile as a big boss, trained at the European Business School in Paris, occupying numerous positions, and even that of mayor of his commune, Trocy-en-Multien.

“At the FNSEA, my work is essentially representation,” he said in 2023 to Le Parisien. To have. Because since his election, from TV set to punch operation, Arnaud Rousseau has established himself as the No. 1 interlocutor for successive institutions and governments. Even though the FNSEA has seen its domination of the agricultural world contested, particularly in favor of Rural Coordination, even though many peasants dragging themselves to death denounce its productivist model, it remains, with its ally Young Farmers, the government’s privileged interlocutor.

The “agri-businessman” was quickly confronted with what he himself called “the worst agricultural crisis in 30 years”: a first winter of anger in the countryside, where farmers demanded to live from their work, to be considered for it and to be able to look to the future. Since then, the feeling of relegation among farmers and breeders seems to have never improved. Rousseau multiplies to bring the subjects to the table of successive governments. The Yellow Vest crisis, in which many operators are involved, the mega basins, the Egalim laws, the CAP reform, the Duplomb law, contagious lumpy skin disease and even the free trade treaty with Mercosur.

In January, the FNSEA obtained from Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu that he initiate the examination of a “special law” for agriculture. Dictation almost word for word.