After the National Assembly, the Senate approved on Tuesday a bill to limit neighborhood conflicts, a text brandished as a response to farmers who are facing an increase in complaints from neo-rural residents settling near farms sometimes noisy.
The text carried by Renaissance MP for Morbihan Nicole Le Peih introduces into the civil code the principle of liability based on “abnormal neighborhood disturbances”, a notion which already existed in case law but was not codified.
“If we choose the campaign, we must accept it as it is”
But the text also inserts a major exception, which releases the author from all responsibility when this disorder arises from activities pre-existing the installation of the person who considers himself injured.
“If we choose the campaign, we must accept it as it is, that is to say with the people who work and who make it live,” defended the Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti , ensuring that the text will respond to “farmers who increasingly find themselves confronted with neo-rural residents who wish to settle in the countryside without accepting all the consequences”.
The senators modified the text resulting from the National Assembly by restricting the application of this exception only to “economic activities”, and by widening it when it concerns agricultural activities.
The government believes that the text should also apply in the city
Thus, liability will not apply either if the disorder comes from “agricultural activities” which continued “after” the installation, “under new conditions resulting from the bringing into conformity” of the activity to new standards or if “a substantial worsening of the disorder in terms of its nature or intensity” is not noted.
“A farmer who is forced to comply with standards and then finds himself condemned for neighborhood disturbances, finds himself in a flagrant injustice,” denounced Les Républicains senator Laurent Duplomb.
The government greeted these developments with skepticism, believing that the text should also apply in cities, without restricting it to economic activities.
The Minister of Justice also feared the unconstitutionality of the system specific to farmers.
During the session, senators also managed to introduce, against the advice of the government, another exception for “sound effects caused by children” in play areas.
The text was supported by the senatorial majority of the right and the center.
The environmental group voted against while the socialists abstained.
Deputies and senators will now have to agree on a compromise text during a joint committee (CMP).