It is eagerly awaited, a little over a month after the end of the angry movement of French farmers: the agricultural orientation law, supposed to resolve a certain number of their problems, is presented to the Council of Ministers this Wednesday, April 3. But even before the publication of the text, which will then be debated in Parliament, the government is under pressure.
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The text still pursues its two original objectives: to encourage the establishment of new farmers, because a third of farmers will retire in ten years; and adapt agriculture to climate change. But, as a result of the angry movement of farmers at the start of the year, provisions have also been added, which could, once again, undermine environmental requirements, points out Lucile Gimberg of the RFI Science department.
After weeks of agricultural protests and at the end of a rowdy sequence at the Agricultural Show, Emmanuel Macron finally gave in to this strong demand from the majority union in the profession. As the FNSEA wanted, “ food sovereignty » was added as a preamble to this agricultural orientation law.
And agriculture is declared, in article 1, “of major general interest”. A way of placing agriculture “at the same legal level as the environment”, defended the leader of the FNSEA and boss in the agri-food industry, Arnaud Rousseau.
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Will the scope be only symbolic?
Not sure. According to the office of Minister Marc Fesneau, this could “ feed the assessments of the administrative judge » when certain projects are in the balance. We think of megabasins or water restrictions in the event of drought.
The text also intends to accelerate legal disputes around the construction of reservoirs for irrigation and the extension of large livestock buildings… Two emblems of the productivist model.
Finally, the government wants, then by order, to reduce certain penalties incurred by farmers when they harm the environment.
Environmentalists and Republicans stand against the text
“ We are quite desperate… » She prefers to laugh about it, but the environmentalist deputy, Marie Pochon, cannot hide her concern. The directions taken by the government in agricultural matters do not tick any of the boxes of this specialist on the subject: “ This agricultural orientation law does not respond to the issue of ecological transition, nor to the question of decent remuneration for farmers. », she tackles on the microphone ofAurélien Devernoixfrom the political service.
Same distrust on the side of Olivier Marleix, but for opposite reasons. For the president of the Les Républicains group in the Assembly, there are still too many environmental or administrative standards in the text: “ You have nothing structural, nothing that responds to the problems denounced by farmers who today represent a profession whose decline has been organized and which we continue to annoy. »
Environmentalists and Republicans therefore intend to oppose the bill. Incomprehensible to the majority, where we believe we have aimed for the golden mean. “ Yes, what is in this bill is a good lead “, says Richard Ramos. But MP Modem, a member of the presidential camp, hears the frustrations: “ I think the answers are there. They are not total. »
“ Not total ” and above all perhaps not sufficient for those first concerned, the farmers, from whom a new outbreak of anger is feared by the government, while the text must arrive in Parliament in mid-May, less than a month before the European elections.
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