The hegemony of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA) has just taken a blow. If the historically majority union comes out at the top of the agricultural elections, with 80 % of the vote, the victory is bitter. The “yellow caps” of rural coordination (CR), bridgehead of recent agricultural demonstrations, came first in at least 14 departments, according to the provisional results communicated on the night of Thursday, February 6 to Friday. While so far, the FNSEA controlled 93 of the 101 chambers of agriculture.
Between January 15 and 31, some 2.2 million voters – including nearly 400,000 operating heads but also retirees, employees or landowners – were called upon to elect their representatives by electronic or postal means. Organized every six years, the ballot has seen four agricultural unions oppose: FNSEA, young farmers (JA), rural coordination, peasant confederation and family operators’ defense movement (ModeF).
“Victory without triumphalism”
The “yellow caps” of the CR, which had called for a release vote against the FNSEA, welcomed Thursday in a press release from a “historic victory”. According to provisional results reported by the chambers of agriculture, they won a majority of votes among the operating heads in 14 departments, including the Cher, the Ardennes, the Lozère, the Charente, the Indre-et-Loire and The Gers. In its stronghold of Lot-et-Garonne, the CR triumphs with almost 70 %.
With “lists arrived in the lead in more than 80 % of the departments”, the FNSEA-JA alliance remains “the first union force in the agricultural world”, underlined during a press conference the president of the FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau . But victory is “without any triumphalism”, he added by taking note of the “tilting of about fifteen chambers of agriculture”.
In Gironde, where the CR claims the victory with six votes apart from the FNSEA-Ja list, the president of the FDSEA Jean-Samuel Eynard accused it: “The farmers of Gironde made their choice … We have 3 elected officials” , against 12 to the CR due to the voting system promoting the list arrived at the head. The FNSEA-JA alliance has reinforced its anchoring in its historic fiefs in the north of the country, from Brittany and the Southeast, losing ground in departments qualified as “intermediaries”, harshly struck by the crisis of the last months, according to Provisional results published by the Chambers of Agriculture and the Specialized Terre-Net site.
“Voting of anger”
“The agricultural world needs change. We want to break the system. There is a fracture between the ground and unionism. We are a forgotten region, we no longer felt represented,” Jérôme Bayle told AFP, Figure of the farmers’ protest movement in early 2024 and breeder in Haute-Garonne, this department harshly struck by drought and animal diseases.
The yellow cups of the CR, followers of punch operations, had relentlessly criticized the FNSEA. Bearers of an anti-norm speech, demanding the abolition of the French Biodiversity Office, they hoped to delight 10 to 15 rooms. By gleaning a majority of the departmental chambers in New Aquitaine, the CR could delight the regional chamber in March: it would be the first in France to detach from the FNSA-Ja couple.
The FNSEA has seen a “anger vote” which “prospered on the promises not held for almost a year by the public authorities, thus fueling a feeling of abandonment”, in the words of Arnaud Rousseau .