Living in the countryside has to be earned. Some neo-rural residents may have forgotten this when they settled down, discovering that the roosters crowed and the manure smelled strongly. We all remember Maurice who annoyed his neighbors on the island of Oléron and won in court in 2019, thus becoming a symbol of rurality. A case which had highlighted the sometimes difficult cohabitation between locals and neo-rural residents with numerous complaints filed for abnormal neighborhood disturbance.
In this battle, the Government took a position in favor of the peasants. While a bill aimed at better protecting farmers from neo-rurals who are suing them must be examined on Monday in the National Assembly, Eric Dupond-Moretti went this Friday morning to a farm in Pleucadeuc in Morbihan .
“How do we eat bread if we can’t cut wheat”
“Those who come to settle in rural areas cannot demand that the peasants, who are workers, who feed us, change their way of life,” declared the Minister of Justice. “There are people who have been inconvenienced and who have sued because they heard the noise of the combine harvesters. We walk on the head. I don’t know how you can eat bread if you can’t cut the wheat,” he added.
Freshly relaxed, the minister had at his side the Renaissance MP for Morbihan, Nicole Le Peih, herself a farmer and at the origin of this proposed law which aims “to adapt the law of civil liability to current issues” in matters of “abnormal neighborhood disturbances. » It is for this reason that certain agricultural operators have recently been condemned, sometimes sparking controversy as for this breeder from Oise judged responsible for nuisances linked to his cows and who had to pay more than 100,000 euros in damages to local residents.
A proposed law which also concerns urban areas
The text which will be debated on Monday in the Hemicycle proposes to supplement the Civil Code by specifying that civil liability cannot be engaged “when the disturbance comes from activities, whatever their nature, pre-existing the installation (…) which continued under the same conditions and which are carried out in accordance with the legislation in force. “. Don’t come bother me because I’m working! », summarized the Minister of Justice, for whom “it is a text of common sense, a text of harmony which establishes the well-being of life together. »
The proposed law is not limited to rural areas either and also concerns urban areas. “You buy an apartment above a store which generates noise pollution. You knew it, so you accept a certain number of inconveniences,” said Eric Dupond-Moretti.