Anger of farmers: “All promises will be kept”, assures Michel Barnier

Stifle the crisis before it gets too big? While some actions are already being carried out locally and a national mobilization, at the initiative of several agricultural unions, is planned from next week, Michel Barnier spoke on the subject at the microphone of France Bleu, this Friday , from the Assises des Départements de France in Angers (Maine).

Farmers and fishermen “work a lot to not earn much, but they do a vital job”, began the Prime Minister, judging that food sovereignty was “a national issue”.

Less than a year after a movement of historic proportions, farmers, caught in a crisis that does not seem to end, are putting pressure on the new government. There are many demands, including low incomes and heavy bureaucracy. To try to answer this last point, Michel Barnier wishes to “give more space to prefects”, offer them the ability to be “autonomous, within the framework of the law”, and allow them “to experiment, to differentiate, to deviate sometimes”, as situations can be different from one department to another. “We need adaptation to the territory,” he insisted.

Announcements at the beginning of November

Another problem pointed out by farmers, the fear of seeing taxes rise at the Chinese and American borders and the fear of a signing of the European Union’s free trade agreement with Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia).

On this last point, however, the French political class and the agricultural world are in agreement. More than 600 parliamentarians, from several groups, expressed their opposition to the draft treaty. “We must refuse it,” insisted Michel Barnier on France Bleu this Friday, assuring that Paris is “working” to convince other members of the 27. It is “not acceptable that tens of thousands of tons of beef enter our soil with breeding conditions which are not at all the same as those we impose on our farmers, so we refuse this unfair competition,” detailed the head of government.

Clearly, “France will oppose, in all the instances where it sits, any agreement that does not conform to the interests of European agricultural subsidiaries,” concluded Michel Barnier on the subject. But despite Paris’ refusal “under current conditions”, the EU seems determined for the moment.

At the beginning of November, the Minister of Agriculture, Annie Genevard, announced that the government intended to offer two tools to support the cash flow of farmers most in difficulty: a “short-term loan” for which the State negotiates a reduced rate with the banking sector and an increase in the envelope making it possible to conditionally exempt part of social security contributions. The details will be announced by the minister in charge, said Michel Barnier.

10 months ago, a large-scale movement broke out in France, but also in other European countries. He led the government to release millions of euros and make numerous promises. But not all were kept. “I will do what was said by previous governments,” the Prime Minister reassured on France Bleu this Friday.