Total improvisation? Excessive pride in wanting to bring enemies together around the same table? Lack of understanding of the extent of agricultural anger? A mix of all three, no doubt. By deciding to invite the Earth Uprisings to the “great debate” planned to open the 60th International Agricultural Show, Saturday morning February 24, the Elysée ruined its initiative from the start. It doesn’t matter that the invitation was promptly withdrawn on Thursday evening, just a few hours after being made public, it doesn’t matter that the Elysée tweeted this Friday noon that it was a “mistake made during the interview with the press”, the damage was done.
First, because in the absence of the FNSEA, a union certainly criticized but still in the majority, the debate largely loses its interest. Then, because the initiative showed the contradictions of an executive capable, a few months ago, of demanding the dissolution of a movement to better reintroduce it into the public debate in the heart of the agricultural crisis. At the risk of displaying his differences, as evidenced by the comments of Marc Fesneau, on TF1 this Friday, the Minister of Agriculture having deemed the invitation addressed to the Earth Uprisings “inopportune”. Finally, because this initial hiccup gives an excellent pretext to distance themselves from all those who have an interest in disagreement and anger, to all those who want to see the exercise as nothing more than a “masquerade”. Far, very far from the ambition of Emmanuel Macron, who already imagined himself regaining control and calming minds on the occasion of his inaugural visit.
There is listening, announcements and manner. Untangleable triptych. In the mind of the president, Macronism corresponds to a unique practice of power combining verticality and personal commitment on subjects too sensitive or too serious to leave others – starting with his Prime Minister – to maneuver. Emmanuel Macron has been observing him for weeks, this young tenant of Matignon, and does not hold back from commenting, as we reported in L’Express, on his capacity for negotiation. For ten days, the head of state seems convinced of the need to “put a lot of capital”, in his words, into the file. And as often since the yellow vest crisis, “putting a lot of capital” translates into the organization of a major debate, an exercise which he loves. Skeptical or frankly critical audiences and interlocutors, technical subjects, sometimes ultra-technical… a cocktail which gives the exercise the appearance of an impassable mountain and which requires those concerned to surpass themselves, but also offers the possibility of surprising. The dream.
“A free, open and transparent debate”, says the Elysée
Imagined at the end of 2018 to appease social anger, this format was then used in March 2019 for an exchange with intellectuals, often harsh with the president. A method that bears a striking resemblance to the trump card you pull out of your sleeve when the game seems lost. For the 2024 version, at the Agricultural Show, the president seemed to want to act as a mediator. By inviting the entire agricultural world to the table, from unions to large distributors, including manufacturers and even leaders of environmental associations, he hoped to recreate the dialogue between these different actors while mapping out the objectives with them. for the agriculture of tomorrow. “The president wants the debate to be as open and therefore as frank and direct as possible. He will be ready to respond to the various questions,” it was indicated at the Elysée when the event was announced. “It will be a free, open, frank and transparent debate”, we insisted, hoping for a discussion “in full force, in a republican state of mind but without filter”.
The Elysée itself created the filter by communicating about the participation of the Earth Uprisings in the debate. In doing so, he put the FNSEA in an impossible situation. How can we imagine that Arnaud Rousseau, who had publicly and personally drawn the government’s attention to the danger posed by the group only a few months ago, would take part in the exercise? In June 2023, after an action in Loire-Atlantique, he challenged the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, on Twitter, evoking an “urgency to act” and pointing the finger at “irresponsible people who defy the authorities and seek chaos “. While the issue of water and “agribashing” is extremely sensitive in the agricultural world, the president of the FNSEA could not take the risk of appearing to discuss casually with those who are considered as “enemies”. Especially a few months before the elections to the chambers of agriculture, scheduled for the beginning of 2025, when competition promises to be tough in this area, in particular with the Rural Coordination which is trying to take advantage of the current anger to progress.
Avoid another hiccup
Beyond the hiccup, the episode reveals the limits of the exercise proposed by the Elysée. We are far from the format of the great debate of the yellow vest era where, of course, there were intermediaries between the occupants of the roundabouts and the President of the Republic, but local intermediaries such as the mayors. In addition, the executive had taken care to collect the words of the base in advance in the registers of grievances. This time, the Élysée team preferred to bring together institutional players. Everyone present tomorrow (retail managers, union leaders, NGO representatives, etc.) already know each other very well, they regularly exchange discussions in smaller committees, they participate in negotiations pitting them against each other, they are used to scrapping in the media. To believe that a public debate, even (or especially) in the presence of the Head of State, is likely to bring together the positions of actors with such divergent interests and such constructed speech is naive to say the least. Everyone will, of course, be able to express their point of view, or even use the great debate as a platform, but by letting people believe too much that from confrontation the solution is born, the Elysée takes the risk of the play played many times which ends up tire.
In public opinion, the exercise will perhaps have the virtue of highlighting the responsibilities of everyone in the current situation. But he will struggle to convince the agricultural base, more eruptive than ever. The Elysée did not appreciate that, at the end of January, Gabriel Attal went beyond the traditional framework by meeting Jérôme Bayle on his dam, in Occitanie, and did not want to give the impression of bypassing intermediary bodies like the FNSEA. But by retaining the principle of an institutional meeting, the Elysée gives the base the feeling of not wanting to hear it. A base which does not always feel represented by its unions and which wants to play its little music. A base with multifaceted demands that would like us to listen to its anxieties and needs. Income for some, phytosanitary regulations for others…
The desires are not the same for endive producers in the north of France who are bearing the brunt of the rise in energy prices and for breeders in the South-West whose cattle are victims of MHE disease. On questions as concrete as these, but also and perhaps especially on the more diffuse malaise and unease which permeates the countryside, the great debate will not provide an answer. The government’s multiple proposals, measures and setbacks since the start of the crisis in early January show it: the anger is of another nature. On Saturday, Emmanuel Macron will have a final opportunity to prove to farmers that he understands them, during his stroll through the aisles of the Salon. As long as you choose your words carefully. As long as we avoid another hiccup between now and then. A seduction operation on the edge, with serious consequences.
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