Eboth media and popular event, it was inevitable that the International Agricultural Show, which opened its doors on February 24, would serve as a sounding board for the farmers’ protest movement which has been shaking France and many countries for several weeks. its European neighbors. Hostility towards the President of the Republic has, however, reached a level hitherto unequaled in this type of demonstration. Emmanuel Macron wandered around all day behind a massive security cordon, enduring the whistles and insults of hundreds of farmers, both outraged by his presence and demanding concrete action to guarantee their survival.
While its government has been trying for weeks to respond to the agricultural malaise by negotiating as a priority with the FNSEA and the Young Farmers (JA), the Elysée has presumed its strength by ruling that the organization, at the show, of a public debate bringing together representatives of the agricultural world, mass distribution and the environmental movement would allow better sharing of constraints.
Risky, the initiative turned into a fiasco when the name of the radical collective Earth Uprisings, which the government had wanted to dissolve without succeeding, was mentioned at the Elysée among the possible participants. He provoked a boycott of the event by the FNSEA and the JA, even if the president still managed to improvise a dialogue with agricultural officials, during which he put forward new concessions.
Less than a year before the elections to the chambers of agriculture and four months before the European vote, the agricultural unions, divided and pushed by their base, are raising the stakes. They have the massive support of public opinion, without the latter however questioning the consequences of their demands in terms of purchasing power and public health.
Breaking the deadlock
In addition to the recognition of their suffering, the farmers obtained a lot in less than thirty days: the reduction of environmental standards, the questioning of an indicator for the fight against pesticides, the relaxation of fallows, the outline of prices floors by sector, the rebate on the profession of the EGalim law, cash flow measures, the inclusion in the law that agriculture and food are “a major general interest of the French nation”.
Taken together, these concessions call into question the commitments linked to the ecological transition, made at national and European level but difficult to implement, like the carbon tax in the past. Declined by a string of administrations not always coordinated with each other, certain regulations ended up giving rise to an outcry in the most fragile farms or those most ill-prepared for structural change, against a backdrop of trench warfare between the agricultural world and the most radical environmental movements.
This situation leads to a dead end. It requires us to collectively rethink the way in which the ecological transition must be ensured, to clearly redefine the objectives that we assign to French agriculture, without evading the responsibility of distributors and consumers in the race for the lowest prices. The stakes are so high that sooner or later a national debate involving all parties will have to become necessary. But first things need to calm down.