No more field trips these days, no more control of agricultural operations. In the delegations of the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), the instructions from the prefectures are clear: stay in your offices, opt for teleworking on days of farmer demonstrations. Within the public establishment dedicated to safeguarding biodiversity, renamed “French Badger Office” by certain operators in tractor processions, dismay competes with concern.
“Since the Prime Minister’s announcements [Gabriel Attal]agents no longer go to farms, otherwise they would be in danger, indicates Véronique Caraco-Giordano, general secretary of the National Environment Union (SNE-FSU). How will they be able to return to carry out their missions after that? We do not know. » According to her, the bashing stirred up by a few operators “productivists and pollutants” began in the summer of 2023, particularly on social networks. The union leader wishes “put facts back into the public arena”.
On 400,000 farms in France, OFB agents carried out 3,000 control operations in 2023 and half of them were classified as compliant with the regulations. In the event of an offense falling under the jurisdiction of the courts, this may give rise to a hearing before a public prosecutor, in the presence of the farmer in question. Currently, agents prefer to ask that these meetings be postponed, as the situation is so tense.
Insults and threats
As for the disarmament demanded by the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions, it causes the environmental police to react: are they not responsible for controlling hunters and required to intervene in seizures of wild species which are accompanied by sometimes arms trafficking? “The OFB crystallized the crisis, observes Véronique Caraco-Giordano, while it is made up of passionate people who want to implement state policy. Why throw them out to pasture? »
For weeks now, quantities of manure, slurry, old tires, rotten hay, hedge thickets, rubble, mud, waste of all kinds have been dumped in front of their premises everywhere in France: from Louvignies (North) to Aubusson (Creuse) and Guéret, Nersac (Charente), Mont-de-Marsan and Gap, among others. One of the buildings at the Haras national du Pin, in Orne, was wrapped in plastic film like a bale of straw. Several company vehicles parked in front of agents’ homes underwent the same treatment.
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