One of my farmer friends transferred me last week an email from his prefecture thus denominated: “Important, this message is an information message n ° 2, sent to all operators with an unparked pacing number on our software.” Such a title, so cheeky technocratic, has something to scare away. It turns out that a substantial number of our peasants is affected is concerned. So this is my friend forced to read this message … and to understand the content. This chronicle being limited, I cannot reproduce its entirety, although I burn envy. Here are some extracts. They make it possible to grasp, better than any thesis of economics or political discourse, of which our country suffers.
“So that your fallows (JAC code) can enter the calculation” …
The email begins thus-breathe a big blow: “to follow up on the first information message of 03/18/2025; this second message presents the main regulatory modifications PAC 2025 compared to the PAC 2024. Please note: so that your fallow (JAC code) can enter into the calculation of the number of points (for the record, you must obtain 4 points for the basic level of the help and at least 5 points for the higher level) Check in the devoted page that they are ‘iae’ (agro -ecological infrastructure). Jachere should not be valued between 01/03/2025 and 31/08/2025 (no mowing, no grinding with grass recovery and no grazing), between 15/04 and 15/10 for the jac mellifers, be crushed and mowed for 40 days from 01/05 to 06/09/2025. “
We think we breathe. Failed: a threat is looming: “Be careful, if you do not check ‘iae’, your fallows over 5 years old will go into permanent meadows and no backwards will be possible (smaller number of points for the Ecoregime via the path of practices and no possibility of integrating your non -IAE fallows for the ecoregime via IAE).”
Unexpected, an unexpected horse consideration completes the table: “For equity holders, to be counted in the calculation of the eligibility threshold (5 UGB), horses must have at least 6 months and at most 3 years in 31 years 2025 (reproductive horses of more than 3 years remain eligible for the calculation: at least one birth or a declaration of protruding between May 16, 2024 and May 15 2025). “
Appliant, expensive and infantilizing instructions
But what a nausea! The rest is even less evocative to me than a Sanskrit poem: “BCAE7. What was called ‘obligation to rotate cultures’ in 2023 and 2024 is completed in 2025 by the possibility of choosing ‘diversification’. You can choose either the ‘rotation’ criterion to respect this conditionality, that is to say, set up a different culture on 35 % of your arable land from 2025 and respect a different culture of your land arable between 2023 and 2025; or choose the ‘diversification’ criterion. “
All the misfortune of France is said to be almost said in these lines, accompanied by several attachments describing the cultures concerned, the areas, the years … These Kafkai regulations are the daily life of our farmers, artisans and entrepreneurs. They are frightening because almost impossible to decipher, expensive since it is necessary to take the time to immerse yourself in an attempt to apply them, infantilizing by their level of detail.
My friend assures me that he receives this kind of emails regularly and that he himself, despite his experience, struggles to follow up on it. How to be surprised, therefore, of the increase in burnout, depression and even suicides in this profession? Do we imagine the impact that these repeated messages can lead to the morale of operators who ask for nothing other than to do their work correctly and have the impression of failing before an administration that has become crazy?
A bill for economic simplification is now stuck in the meanders of the Parliament. Please, ladies and gentlemen, and for the good of France, get rid of this normative nightmare!
Nicolas Bouzou, economist and essayist, is director of the Astères consulting firm
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