Gabriel Attal will try this Monday to clear up the agricultural issue. Faced with the anger of farmers which is spreading in Europe without sparing France, he will receive at 6 p.m. in Matignon the powerful FNSEA as well as the Young Farmers.
The two unions are waiting for “concrete actions” after the postponement of “a few weeks” of a bill which must be fleshed out. “Our farmers are not bandits, polluters, people who torture animals, as we sometimes hear,” said the Prime Minister on Saturday in the Rhône, as a sign of appeasement.
The executive fears the conflagration
It must be said that anger is brewing. Since Thursday evening, several dozen operators have been blocking the A64 motorway, near Carbonne, in Haute-Garonne. An action provoked by financial burdens and environmental standards considered too heavy. The gradual increase in taxation on non-road diesel (GNR) amplifies the fed up.
The government fears a conflagration while from the Netherlands to Romania via Poland and Germany, farmers are stepping up actions against rising taxes and the European Green Deal. All this against a backdrop of inflation and competition from Ukrainian imports. The United Kingdom is not spared: fruit and vegetable producers will also demonstrate this Monday in front of Parliament in London.
In France, the profession is also scalded by the successive postponements of the agricultural bill, promised more than a year ago by Emmanuel Macron and ultimately less ambitious than the “agricultural orientation law” initially announced. On Sunday, Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau announced a new deadline. The text, which was to be presented to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, will only be presented in “a few weeks” with the aim of being debated in Parliament “in the first half of 2024”.
A profession marked by aging
“We are no longer a week away,” reacted the vice-president of the FNSEA Luc Smessaert. He calls in particular to “stop the overtransposition” of European standards and “to apply 100%” the Egalim law of 2021, which aims to protect farmers’ remuneration.
The bill intends to promote generational renewal in agriculture, a necessity at a time when the population of nearly 500,000 farm managers is aging. “A drastic simplification of standards” is necessary, further estimated the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire on TF1. The Ministry of Agriculture, for its part, welcomed the “historic” budget – 4 billion euros for the next three years, including 1.3 billion in 2024, allocated to agriculture.
In the absence of rapid progress, the FNSEA has already threatened to amplify actions and disrupt Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the Agricultural Show, which will be held from February 24 in Paris. On the Brussels side, a meeting of agriculture ministers is planned for the start of the week.