It’s not a big surprise. While he was the only candidate to head the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA), Arnaud Rousseau became this Thursday, April 13 the new president of the first French agricultural union. He thus succeeds the six-year reign of Christiane Lambert, a breeder from Maine-et-Loire with a strong temperament.
A graduate of the European Business School in Paris and producer of arable crops (rapeseed, sunflower, corn), Arnaud Rousseau chairs the Avril group, a juggernaut with nearly 7 billion euros in turnover in 2021, active in the edible oils, biofuels or even animal feed. As noted by Mediapart, the latter is also at the head of several “para-agricultural” companies: a land group, a biogas company and a photovoltaic company. In a letter addressed to the administrators of the FNSEA as a profession of faith in December, the aspiring president thus called for “producing better, producing food” but also “energy”, and presented himself as the defender of an “offensive agriculture […] who refuses to let himself be confined by ideologies, unacceptable violence, and the sirens of decline”.
A conservative view
“Even more than others, he embodies an agriculture linked to agro-industry”, even though “we must think about the transition, think about ecological planning in the context of climate change”, estimates with AFP Nicolas Girod, spokesperson for the Confédération paysanne, a minority union classified on the left. “This new president ticks all the boxes to continue on a conservative vision of agriculture, where productivism and agro-business dominate”, judge for its part the association Greenpeace. Although he has little in common with Christiane Lambert, Arnaud Rousseau is in line with one of his predecessors at the head of the FNSEA, Xavier Beulin, who also chaired the Avril group (ex-Sofiprotéol) until upon his sudden passing in 2017.
Arnaud Rousseau is also president of the French Federation of Oilseed and Protein Crop Producers, which co-signed a press release in mid-February against an opinion from ANSES in favor of the ban in France of S-metolachlor, a herbicide used in large crops. “A new warning shot for the agricultural sector, just a few days after the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union totally prohibiting the use of neonicotinoids in seed coating to fight against parasitic insects”, denounces the communicated.
A profile linked to the agro-industry assumed
With him, the union “has done everything to maintain the status quo”, deplores to AFP Mathieu Courgeau, dairy farmer and co-president of the Nourrir collective, which brings together 52 organizations for an overhaul of the agricultural and food system. “Breeders will say to themselves ‘we will not be defended’, without knowing who Arnaud Rousseau is”, regrets Philippe Jehan, milk producer and former president of the union in Mayenne. “He has shared Catholic values. He’s a guy close to people, someone who doesn’t get carried away. A quiet force,” he defends.
Arnaud Rousseau, he “assumes” to be linked to “agro-industry”, and does not see how his profile could harm him. “In France, when you have cows, pigs, wheat or beets, you need a transformation behind it. Between the breeder and the plate, you need a dairy. The idea that we could not have a look between agriculture and the processing industry, that concerns me”, claims the oilseed pro to Release.
On his desk await him two major files: that of basins, which gave rise to violent clashes in Sainte-Soline, in Deux-Sèvres, and the retirement of half of the farmers by 2030. ” Agriculture today is in the same situation as industry was fifty years ago: in danger of disappearing, he considered in Le Figaro last November. If we continue at this pace, entire territories risk losing their farmers. And one day, the government will have to imagine a policy of “re-agriculturalization” of France.”