Although the blockages have ended, the agricultural unions are not ready to put pressure on the government.
The Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau said Wednesday on RMC “understand the vigilance” of the organizations, with which the executive continues the dialogue, just a handful of days before the Agricultural Show.
“It’s normal that there is this anger expressed and that we take these emergency measures.
There is a moment of impatience but we cannot say that we have not made significant efforts,” he argued.
Ten days after the lifting of farmers' blockades following government announcements, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and Marc Fesneau received representatives of the FNSEA and Young Farmers (JA) in Matignon on Tuesday.
The President of the Republic will receive the Rural Coordination and the Peasant Confederation this Wednesday, before the FNSEA and the JA next week, as before each Agricultural Show, which opens on February 24 in Paris.
“What do we have in front of us between now and the Show?
A certain number of additional simplification measures, elements which will be put into legal texts in the agricultural orientation law, which will be sent to the Council of State at the time of the Salon, and a deliberation in the Assembly and the Senate which must take place between now and June,” specified Marc Fesneau.
“The simplification measures must continue, I understand the vigilance of the unions,” he added.
“A crisis that comes from afar”
The minister, however, considered that the ongoing tensions were not only linked to the current context.
“It’s a crisis that comes from far away, of which we take our part, but when you have 25 years of procedures, of sedimentation, of over-administration, of over-transposition, when you unravel all that and you open the hood, obviously everything comes out,” he pleaded.
As for the Agricultural Show, to which all eyes are turning, “I don’t fear it,” he assured.
“It’s not just the meeting between the political world and farmers, it’s the meeting between the French and farmers.
We will be there, I will be there,” said the minister.
Read also Farmers “ready to take action again”, supports the boss of the FNSEA before his visit to Matignon
After two weeks of blockages, farmers left camp at the beginning of February following three bursts of announcements from the government, including more than 400 million euros in emergency measures.
But the unions believe that these measures are slow to apply, and do not intend to ease the pressure on subjects as sensitive as administrative simplification, the use of pesticides or even breeding.
“Everything must be in place at the time of the show,” repeated Arnaud Rousseau, president of the powerful FNSEA, on Tuesday as he left Matignon.
As for Emmanuel Macron, “he will not have to arrive only with fine speeches at the Agricultural Show,” he warned a little earlier in the day.
A few scattered actions have already resumed, like the coup of independent milk producers who came Tuesday morning to the Esplanade des Invalides in Paris with a handful of tractors, while around fifty sheep breeders came them gathered in front of Bercy.