The government, to respond to the anger of farmers, has moved forward on many subjects, but
"the question of remuneration is still before us"
, admitted Thursday the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau, two days before the opening of the Agricultural Show.
“I said from the start that there would be (measures) before the Show, during the Show and a lot of things also after the Show
,” declared on France Bleu Armorique the minister, who is due to visit in the morning on a pig and dairy farm in Finistère.
“The question of remuneration is still before us
,” he added.
On other subjects, decrees have already been published or sent to the Council of State, a bill is being written, recalled Marc Fesneau.
“It’s normal that there is a form of impatience, but we have undoubtedly done in three weeks, a month, much more than we had ever done on these questions, in particular simplification”
, he noted.
On the draft of a new EGalim law, which would be the fourth version of this text intended to prevent farmers from being paid below their production price, the minister justified the need to “
adjust”
it .
“We are faced with mainly large retail chains (...) who have batteries of lawyers”
who
“know how to circumvent”
the law, he declared.
“Fighting on the question of remuneration”
“In truth, a certain number of people in mass distribution did not want Egalim (...) because they do not want regulation (...). We are not going to back down from these powers
,” added the minister.
According to him, the new version of Egalim could include provisions allowing
"the end of circumvention of French purchasing centers"
,
"the march forward of the price"
, i.e. the calculation of prices based on the costs of farmers, before those of the industrialists or distributors,
“and undoubtedly subjects around labeling and labeling deception”
.
The minister also ruled out in an interview with the Breton daily
Le Télégramme
the idea of a
“white year”
, for example suspending loan repayments to relieve farmers' cash flow, defended in particular by Rural Coordination, the 2nd agricultural union French.
“A unilateral cash flow measure, blindly, is not effective at all, and it means postponing the problem until a year later
,” he declared.
“The question is rather to fight on the question of remuneration
,” he added.