Can we imagine a more Macronian subject? The demands of French farmers have oscillated, for fifty years, between defense of sovereignty and freedom to trade, between protection and exports. “Produce and protect”summarized the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, Thursday 1er February: a “at the same time” which sums up all the difficulty of dealing with the agricultural question for the public authorities.
“There is always a double standardobserves former Macronist MP Jean-Baptiste Moreau, a farmer undergoing reconversion. The Republicans today denounce the free trade agreements in France, but voted for them all in Brussels! » In the same way, “the free trade agreement with Canada [CETA] was signed under François Hollande before being voted on by the current majority”he recalls.
If France is regressing as an agricultural power in international rankings, it nevertheless remains largely an exporter, with a trade surplus of more than 9 billion euros in 2022 in agriculture, a record for ten years. And farmers, who these days denounce unfair foreign competition, are often themselves asking for texts facilitating their access to new markets, such as China for French pork farmers.
“It’s clear, it’s clear, it’s firm”
Ambiguity is also found among the Macronists, torn between their pro-European discourse, the economic rationale of free trade agreements, their collateral effects on some farmers, the need to respond to tensions on purchasing power, to which cheap imported products are sometimes more likely to respond, and an opinion increasingly acquired towards sovereignism. “There is no question of France accepting this treatyinsisted Gabriel Attal about Mercosur, this free trade treaty between Europe and several South American countries, which has been under negotiation for more than twenty years. It’s clear, it’s clean, it’s firm. »
In 2019, however, when it was already denounced by the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions, Emmanuel Macron welcomed the conclusion of discussions on this agreement, judging that it was ” Good “ since “all requests” formulated by France had been ” taken into account “. Before retracting a few months later in a context of increased tension with the new Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro.
The majority is at the same time criticized for having voted in favor of opening trade with Ukraine in agricultural matters in Brussels or for having accepted trade agreements with Chile, Kenya and New Zealand. “If they had the slightest interest in the suffering of farmersscathed Marine Le Pen during her vows on January 25, they would stop voting for the free trade agreements that are multiplying. » “Who has signed, voted for, free trade agreements in spades in recent years in the European Parliament? These are the Macronists! »stormed the MEP La France insoumise Manon Aubry, on Franceinfo, on January 30.
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