At the end of a feverish debate, Emmanuel Macron met with angry farmers “ in three weeks, at home ». It was February 24, opening day of the 60e edition of the Agricultural Show. A day of sound and fury “which will be remembered for a very long time »said the next day the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal.
The three weeks have largely passed and calm has returned to the farmyards. The roadblocks were lifted and, “ overall, the pressure has gone down a lot », we estimate at the Elysée. But the head of state has still not made peace with the peasant world, who booed him so much a month ago.
Farmers have obtained an unprecedented number of concessions from the government. “In just two months, we have progressed like never before”underlined the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, Thursday March 28, at 78e annual congress of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA), in Dunkirk.
Despite the 67 measures to which the government is committed and the concessions obtained at European level (the Twenty-Seven approved a revision of the common agricultural policy unraveling its environmental rules), the agricultural world maintains pressure on the executive . Around a hundred farmers demonstrated in Tours and Nîmes on Thursday March 28, at the joint call of the FNSEA, the Young Farmers (JA), but also the Rural Coordination, the competing union. The minister, who expected a welcome ” tonic » in Dunkirk, was not disappointed, with trade unionists pounding the ground during his speech. “We can clearly see that there is distrust, but not to the point of anger”estimated Marc Fesneau at the end of the congress, judging that the sector remains “very close to the skin”.
“What about the ambition of the head of state? »
In his closing speech, Arnaud Rousseau, boss of the FNSEA, targeted the head of state. “The President of the Republic seems hesitant to make an appointment, the one he promised us at the Agricultural Show, believing that the situation is not ripe, he said. What about the ambition of the head of state? »
At the end of his mano a mano with the unionists at the Agricultural Show, Emmanuel Macron asked them to “ agree on four or five major objectives or demands”, while a list of 120 demands had been established at the end of the protest movement. A prerequisite which was not fulfilled last week in the eyes of the Head of State, leading him to postpone the meeting. Emmanuel Macron will receive the unions “when all the work carried out by the government will allow the president to conclude the sequence”announced the Elysée on March 18.
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