The words fell. Demanded for years by some farmers, a “French agricultural exception” on the model of the cultural exception was defended by Gabriel Attal. Faced with the crisis in the agricultural world, what does this element of language cover? Is it possible to implement it? Is it simply desirable?
An agricultural exception, what do you mean?
At the beginning of the 1990s, at the initiative of France, the European Union established an exception for culture which was then not considered as a commercial good subject to the rules of the international market. Culture also benefits from a “support system set up by the State for French cultural and artistic creation”, develops the site of the THAT’S IT. To put it quickly: French culture is protected and supported, apart from financial speculation.
This is what the Rural Coordination particularly wants supported by representatives of the main associations of elected officials. Applied to the agricultural world, this means “allowing agriculture to leave the World Trade Organization (WTO) which would instead be placed under the control of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)”, explains to 20 minutes Gilles Keller, research officer for the agricultural union. “It means avoiding competition and the race to the bottom and considering that agriculture is not an industry like any other,” he insists. Concretely, this would mean removing agriculture from free trade agreements, “that it is no longer an adjustment variable that we discuss at the end”, continues Gilles Keller.
Political promises
“It’s not because we’ve never done it that we can’t do it,” says Gille Keller. The idea of getting all the WTO countries to agree, however, seems complicated, at least insurmountable for France alone. “Our agriculture is our strength, and our pride too. So I say it here solemnly: there must be a French agricultural exception,” nevertheless launched the Prime Minister on Tuesday during his general policy speech to the deputies.
A few minutes earlier, the President of the Republic also declared that he wanted to regulate poultry imports from Ukraine and reiterated his opposition to the EU-Mercosur trade agreement because the rules are not “homogeneous with ours”. Exiting this agreement would be “already a first step”, believes Sylvie Colas, national secretary of the Farmers and Poultry Farmer Conference in Gers who is pleading for an exit from free trade agreements.
For what reality?
Could this political will be enough? “We cannot imagine an exception that protects us, while continuing to export so much,” explains Jean-Marie Séronie, independent agroeconomist. “In these trade agreements, it is not possible not to have an agricultural component,” adds Jean-Christophe Bureau, professor of economics at AgroParisTech. Other countries will not agree.”
France is an exporting country with three areas of predilection. “Cosmetics, aeronautics and food,” says Jean-Marie Séronie. If we want to make agreements with other countries, and therefore continue to export a lot, we must agree to import their exports too. The agroeconomist does not really see how France could then gain from leaving these agreements, apart from “short-term comfort but with withdrawal, we will have a competitiveness problem”, he warns.
“Social food security”
Imports of products from abroad are not always subject to the same standards as those imposed by the European Union. This is where farmers denounce unfair competition. Moreover, “it is not because France exports well that farmers live well, so there is a hole in the racket”, underlines Gilles Keller.
This gap does not only concern French farmers. Sylvie Colas wants global protection for the global farming world and not just French agriculture in order to establish “food social security”. Her union, the Confédération paysanne, campaigns for “food accessible in quality and quantity to all,” she explains. “We need to get away from economic speculation, regulate the markets, we need another approach to feed the world. This involves in particular the recognition of production costs and fair remuneration for the work of all farmers, here and elsewhere with fair competition, defends the farmer. This is what would bring the most solutions to all of humanity. »