Patratras. Emmanuel Macron, who hoped to appease the anger of the agricultural world around a major debate on Saturday at the Agricultural Show, decided to cancel the meeting, the head of state announced this Friday evening.
“Agricultural unions […] had wanted an open debate. They are now demanding its cancellation. Of which act”, wrote the head of state on, specifying that he will invite “all the agricultural unions before the official opening of the show” on Saturday morning. “I will be there to open it and will contact all those who want to discuss as I do every year,” he continued.
The announcement of the invitation from the ecological collective Uprisings of the Earth, known for their violent actions on agricultural issues but whose presence could symbolize the plurality of the debate at a time when the executive is facing criticism around ecology , turned into a psychodrama. Provoking incomprehension even in the government – which until a few months ago still intended to dissolve the Uprisings – the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau described the invitation as “inopportune”. The FNSEA, the majority agricultural union, immediately saw red, refusing to sit at the same table as those for whom the “Molotov cocktail is the mode of expression” – in the words of Marc Fesneau – and castigating a President of the Republic who “understood nothing about the problems” of farmers.
After a day of delay, the Elysée gave up. The Palace, which on Thursday cited this collective among the environmental associations invited alongside farmers, manufacturers and mass retailers, initially tried to put out the fire by pleading a “communication error”. An “error” attributed by several sources to the Elysée advisors following the file, Benoît Faraco, former spokesperson for the Hulot Foundation and former advisor to Renaissance MEP Pascal Canfin, and Mathias Ginet, the latter also being an agriculture advisor of the Prime Minister.