A cow on February 22, 2024 in a stable in Mahalon, in western France (AFP/Archives/Fred TANNEAU)
Rewritten to respond to winter anger, the government’s agricultural bill arrives in the Assembly chamber on Tuesday, received lukewarmly by the opposition who criticize a lack of ambition on land or remuneration, or even a potentially harmful effect. for the environment.
“This is a brick and one more step in a strategy launched since 2017,” defends Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau in La Nouvelle République.
On the union side, the majority alliance formed by the FNSEA and the Young Farmers supports the philosophy of the text, while the two other representative forces are opposed to it.
The Peasant Confederation (third union), which defends the urgency of the agroecological transition, calls for it to be “profoundly modified” and the Rural Coordination (second union) believes that “the count is not there” given the scale of the crisis.
At the opening of the debates late Tuesday afternoon, it is the environmentalists who will defend a motion to reject.
“There is no financial component, no income component, nothing for the ecological transition,” argues its author Marie Pochon, who should benefit from the support of the socialists. “This law is an illusion,” justifies their leader Dominique Potier, while the LFI group criticizes “a law guiding agribusiness.”
However, communist deputies should not follow them. “This law ignores the strong anger of farmers, particularly on remuneration” but “there is an urgent need to debate”, explains Sébastien Jumel.
At the RN, we were leaning towards Monday letting the debate take place, even though the text is “far below expectations” for Grégoire de Fournas. A source at the LR group also considers it difficult to go “further than the agricultural unions who play appeasement”, while deploring the absence of measures on taxation.
Questions referred by the executive to the fall: a parliamentary mission of Renaissance deputies will have submitted its work on farmers’ income and the executive will have moved forward on a second text concerning phytosanitary products.
– “Major general interest” –
Chickens in Bergouey-Viellenave, southwest of France, April 29, 2024 (AFP/Archives/GAIZKA IROZ)
In the meantime, the government’s eclectic text proposes measures on training, the simplification of legislation on hedges, or even the “acceleration of litigation” in the event of appeal against water storage or building construction projects. breeding, despite warnings from the Council of State on “constitutionality risks”.
A decree published this weekend simultaneously reduced the time limit for filing an appeal against this type of project from four to two months, causing concern among environmental organizations, already opposed to the philosophy of the bill.
The Foundation for Nature and Man (FNH) particularly criticizes a “law that runs counter to the challenges of our century”.
The flagship article of the text plans to consecrate “agriculture and fishing” as being of “major general interest”, a form of appeal to administrative judges to facilitate certain water reservoir or construction building projects. above-ground breeding, when they are weighed against an environmental issue.
Targeted by more than 800 amendments, it is paradoxically the one which is received with the most circumspection by elected officials, even jurists, who believe that the protection of the environment having a constitutional value, this will always prevail over this general interest major registered in a simple law.
Another hot point: the creation of agricultural land savings groups, structures which should make it possible to raise money from public or private investors and finance the purchase of land when new farmers do not have the means. .
But a coalition of oppositions deleted the article in committee, judging that it opened the door to a “financialization” of French agriculture for the benefit of banks or investment funds, which the presidential camp denies.
The rapporteurs plan a new wording with safeguards (limit on the size of the farm that can belong to the same financial group, no sale before ten years except to the operator, etc.).
A farmer in a tractor on the island of Noirmoutier, in western France, May 2, 2024 (AFP/Archives/Ludovic MARIN)
The government also plans to rewrite an article which would allow it to modify by order the repression of certain environmental offenses, by reclassifying criminal sanctions as administrative sanctions. He would renounce these ordinances to write down in black and white the softenings he intends to make.
Examination of the text is scheduled until May 22, with nearly 4,000 amendments tabled.
© 2024 AFP
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