“Libé” returns to meet the French who made the news in our columns to talk about the presidential election. Today, the Creusois Jouany Chatoux, one of the figures of the fight for the legalization of CBD in France, income from macronism.
The black bottom pigs that we saw in June 2019 frolicking at the edge of the forest or in its Creuse meadows are no longer there. Blame it on the avalanches of standards and constraints, in particular the “60,000 euros” of “military fences” to install all around his organic farm in Pigerolles in the Creuse. Not counting the “40,000 euro note” to extend to bring a building up to standard for which it has not finished paying. Jouany Chatoux has made up his mind. The breeder gradually abandons the pig in favor of cannabis guaranteed without high effect. Last year he grew hemp on 26 hectares.
At 44, the farmer has emerged for three years as one of the figures in the fight for the legalization of CBD in France, a non-psychotropic molecule that has become essential. “I consider myself a liberal libertarian. Prohibiting cannabis or drugs is something that is not in my thinking software.” “I was not campaigning for legalization”, nevertheless affirms this son and grandson of farmers. Before the creation of the particular plan for his department. “When the department and the state entered into this deal in April 2019, with the possibility of creating a medical cannabis sectorI put myself 100% into the project”, he says.
Quickly, Creuse farmers fell back on CBD. They are between 20 and 30 to cultivate the plant. A green gold that always eludes them. Because if since the end of January, a decree banning the sale and possession of cannabis flowers has been suspended by the Council of State, pending a next rewrite, the threat of a ban still hovers. Not enough, therefore, to reassure banks and insurance companies, which remain cautious about the idea of investing in small structures, assures Jouany Chatoux. He made the choice of a French culture, organic, and the short circuit when other companies prefer to supply themselves in Switzerland or Italy. “The regions are also waiting for clarification so that they can help us. This would allow us to compete with Italian producers who have infrastructure and machinery subsidized by Europe,” Pointe Chatoux. So when the legal sale of CBD products in France weighs 2 billion euros, only 2% are goods produced in France, he laments.
Security reversal of the government
When he talks about his territory, Jouany recounts memories often mixed with unfulfilled political promises. “The challenges of job creation, the revitalization of the territory, the change of image of a deep countryside like Creuse and its inhabitants, who are always presented as losers… It was an opportunity to break the glass ceiling for us.”
He remembers strong signs: an Emmanuel Macron live from Reunion supporting the project of a sector, or the visit of François de Rugy, then Minister of Ecological Transition, in his container, surrounded by cannabis plants. “We were on a good dynamic. Then, a few weeks later, there was the lobster affair… And the Covid arrived with a new Minister of the Interior”, list Jouany Chatoux, victim of the security reversal of the government around the plant.
Our previous episode of “Their say”
The man evokes a painful moment: the report of the National Assembly on the different uses of cannabis. “A cross-party parliamentary mission, 120 experts interviewed, hundreds of recommendations. We couldn’t do better. But the text was put in the trash by Darmanin. Overnight, we went back to the old system which favors big industrialists and shenanigans.
“I have always voted for the left”
An old system that Jouany thought was over. Five years ago, he made the choice to commit to Emmanuel Macron and created the cell En Marche dans la Creuse. He tells bluntly, but warns: “I have always voted left. In 2002, I was very young mayor of Pigerolles and I gave my signature to Olivier Besancenot. In 2017, among the candidates, Macron was one of the few to defend a regulatory evolution on the production and consumption of cannabis. Methodical, this farmer’s son crumbles unhonored commitments: “He was for a universal income and the end of certain administrative constraints which weigh heavily on the agricultural world. He was talking about simplification, decentralization…”
“I think I am one of the first 1,000 members of En Marche. And I came back.” He says to himself “disappointed” of these five years of mandate and of Macron. “He’s a liberal, but in the bad sense of the word: for friends, for big lobbies. Not liberal in the noble sense of the term.
Jouany Chatoux would have given his voice to Gaspard Koenig, but the essayist failed to obtain a sufficient number of sponsorships. Without a standard bearer, the farmer watches this election play out from afar. Anyway, “with the war, it is a non-campaign”, he lets go, telling us that he does not know who he will vote for. A first. Before taking the risk of betting on a Macron-Le Pen duel or a “surprise” Melenchon-Macron.
And get back to basics. The future of his family, from Creuse. And the accounts. “With the increase in diesel prices, I don’t know how we’re going to do it. It represents 20,000 euros more to be released this year. And I can’t get any income out of it.” Father of four children, he sustains his farm thanks to the help of his wife Sylvie. On the farm, cannabis mobilizes seven full-time people and five seasonal workers. “It could be double. It is for all these reasons that we rely on hemp.”