Arthur de Laborde / Photo credits: XOSE BOUZAS / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP
The agricultural orientation bill will be presented this Wednesday to the Council of Ministers. A text awaited for more than a year which will have to take into account the still strong demands of farmers.
A month after Emmanuel Macron’s chaotic visit to the Salon de l’Agriculture, will farmers’ anger return to the center of the European election campaign? Two months before the election, the subject is still very present. At the same time, the government this Wednesday its agricultural orientation bill. Can this text really appease the movement?
“MPs could give a strong signal by rejecting this law”
Striking hard to put out the fire and responding to demands widely supported by the French is the ambition displayed by the executive with this agricultural orientation bill. But the account is not there for the unions. “We have completely moved away from the priorities of farmers, that is to say living from their profession with a real income. The deputies could give a strong signal by rejecting this law. In any case, on the on the ground, actions continue, we remain mobilized… The money has still not returned to our farms”, says the president of Rural Coordination, Véronique Le Floc’h.
The executive under fire from criticism from the left and right
The fire is still smoldering and a spark can be enough to start it again. As the Europeans approach, the political cost could be very heavy for the government which, despite everything, promises to seek a majority in Parliament to have its text adopted quickly.
The task will be difficult. The executive is both under fire from criticism from the left – which denounces the abandonment of ecology – and from the right – which believes that the project does not sufficiently protect French agriculture.