The President of the Republic declared to the agricultural unions on Thursday that “he did not believe in the end of the movements” of anger and would only deliver his “vision” for agriculture in several months, several union leaders reported. resulting from a meeting at the Élysée. Emmanuel Macron “told us that he did not believe in the end of the movements as the causes were protean and what interested him was to build a project for the future and that he had no intention to run behind the anger These are his words”, declared Arnaud Rousseau the boss of the FNSEA during a press conference.
The majority union has been waiting for months for the president’s “vision” on the future of agriculture in France, after the worst crisis experienced by the agricultural world in thirty years according to Arnaud Rousseau. The president “said that he would only commit if (…) part of the agricultural world was ready to work on this consultation and this new vision of agriculture”, continued Arnaud Rousseau.
“On the ground, we remain mobilized”
The president is ready to “wait until after the elections to the chambers of agriculture”, scheduled for January 2025, judging that competition between unions could be “a factor of interference in the definition of the vision of the future of agriculture “, added the boss of the FNSEA, a union which currently controls the vast majority of chambers of agriculture.
“I felt a little bit that the Rural Coordination was being targeted because on the ground, we remain mobilized. He clearly said that the mobilizations had to stop somewhere so that we could get to work,” Véronique Le told the press. Floc’h, president of the second agricultural union. She confirmed that the president considered it preferable to “wait until after the election to the chambers of agriculture” to deliver his vision, that is to say next year.
For her part, the spokesperson for the Peasant Confederation (3rd union) Laurence Marandola stressed that there had been “a commitment” on the part of Emmanuel Macron “to come back to us and build together”.
“The president perfectly understood that this meeting is not likely to completely close the agricultural subject,” she added. Emmanuel Macron gathered in the morning at the Élysée around thirty representatives of the agricultural world (unions, inter-professional associations, cooperatives) as well as Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and several of his ministers, according to participants in the meeting. This meeting of more than two hours was intended to discuss the “prospects” of the sector according to the Élysée, which hoped to “signify the end” of this winter’s crisis.