Officially it is a “working meeting”, according to the Élysée. President Emmanuel Macron received representatives of the agricultural world this Thursday morning at the Élysée, to discuss the “prospects” of the sector and “announce the end” of this winter’s crisis.
The President of the Republic declared this Thursday to the agricultural unions that “he did not believe in the end of the movements” of anger and would only deliver his “vision” for agriculture in several months, several union leaders reported. following a meeting at the Élysée.
Emmanuel Macron “told us that he did not believe in the end of the movements as the causes were protean and what interested him was to build a project for the future and that he had no intention to run behind anger. These are his words,” declared Arnaud Rousseau, head of the FNSEA, during a press conference.
“I felt a little bit about the Rural Coordination being targeted because on the ground, we remain mobilized. He did say that the mobilizations had to stop somewhere so that we could get to work,” Véronique Le Floc’h, president of the second agricultural union, told the press.
The president’s “vision”
For her part, the spokesperson for the Peasant Confederation (3rd union) Laurence Marandola stressed that there had been “a commitment” on the part of Emmanuel Macron “to come back to us and build together”. “The president perfectly understood that this meeting is not likely to completely close the agricultural subject,” she added.
The majority union has been waiting for months for the president’s “vision” on the future of agriculture in France, after the worst crisis experienced by the agricultural world in thirty years according to Arnaud Rousseau. The president “said that he would only commit if (…) part of the agricultural world was ready to work on this consultation and this new vision of agriculture,” continued Arnaud Rousseau.
The president is ready to “wait until after the elections to the chambers of agriculture”, scheduled for January 2025, judging that competition between unions could be “a factor of interference in the definition of the vision of the future of agriculture », added the boss of the FNSEA, a union which currently controls the vast majority of chambers of agriculture.
During the inauguration, amid boos, of the last Agricultural Show, on February 24 in the midst of an agricultural crisis, Emmanuel Macron arranged to meet the unions three weeks later. The deadline was postponed several times while the majority union FNSEA grew impatient to see the Head of State deliver “his vision” of the future of agriculture.
VIDEO. Boos, clashes and “anger”: a look back at Macron’s tense day at the Salon
The agricultural unions (FNSEA-Young Farmers Alliance, Rural Coordination, Peasant Confederation, Modef), the Agricultural Cooperation (which represents the interests of French cooperatives) and several inter-professions (pork, poultry, cereals, wine, fruits and vegetables) have confirmed that they have been invited.
The executive and the FNSEA do not hide their hope of closing the chapter of the agricultural crisis which broke out with a blockage of a portion of the A64 motorway in mid-January in Haute-Garonne and spread to the whole of the territory around a multitude of grievances on standards, income or even on the consideration of the profession.
“Between 500 and 600 million euros” for public finances
“We were committed. An agreement has been reached. We are marking the end,” commented a source close to Emmanuel Macron. The demonstrations pushed the government to make more than 60 commitments (emergency funds, simplifications, “pause” in the development of the plan to reduce the use of pesticides, reduction of charges on the employment of seasonal workers, etc.) . The most recent date from Saturday, when Prime Minister Gabriel Attal notably assured that the taking into account of the best 25 years in the calculation of farmers’ retirement would be effective in 2026.
“The entire package” of government commitments represents “between 500 and 600 million euros” for public finances, declared for his part the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau.
This meeting comes as the National Assembly began to examine in committee this week an agricultural orientation bill expanded with the crisis. It contains in its article 1 the affirmation that agriculture is of “major general interest”, with a view in particular to facilitating the construction of water reserves for irrigation and new above-ground livestock buildings. .