Agriculture: a meeting with Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée to "shape" government announcements
A little over two months after the end of the blockages and a very rowdy agricultural show, the executive is trying to turn the page on the agricultural crisis. Emmanuel Macron receives stakeholders in the sector at the Elysée on Thursday, May 2 – unions, sector managers or inter-professional organizations – to “discuss the perspectives of French and European agriculture”, according to the Presidency of the Republic.
The meeting takes place a few days after Gabriel Attal’s announcement of 14 new measures to help farmers. The majority unions seem ready to start a new chapter with the government but without starting things from scratch.
After Gabriel Attal’s announcements on Saturday, the new aid released by the public investment bank for farms, the acceleration of 100 water storage or irrigation projects, the FNSEA like the Young Farmers estimated that “the phase of work following the mobilizations ends” which means that we are moving to another phase this morning at the Elysée. “We are moving into another phase of realizationexplains Luc Smessaert, vice-president of the FNSEA. How do we restore income so that we are no longer the adjustment variable between mass distribution and the agri-food industry? How do we get people to stop banning us from using phytosanitary products? In any case, this meeting for Young Farmers and the FNSEA is very important.”
There are still many projects to follow. There is in particular the agricultural orientation bill, discussed since Tuesday in committee at the Assembly, to facilitate in particular the transfer of farms, the Ecophyto plan in the coming days, the new version of Egalim expected by he summer and the future of floor prices to protect farmers’ income, announced by Emmanuel Macron himself at the Agricultural Show.
This does not mean that the unions no longer have requests to make to the head of state. There remains, inevitably, even beyond the vigilance desired by the FNSEA, especially if we are talking about cash flow. For example, the Rural Coordination welcomes progress but the account is still not there, for its president Véronique Le Floc’h: “Our farmers do not have the impression of having been heard. Our treasuries are dry. The bankers are not that involved in the effort to be made.”
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