The contrast is striking. On one side, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron, inaugurating the Agricultural Show to whistles and boos. On the other, the young leader of the National Rally Jordan Bardella, acclaimed during a crowd bath among conquered farmers. Could the RN be the savior of an agricultural world in distress? This is what seems to be suggested by a farmer who, faced with Jordan Bardella, breaks down in tears and implores: “Mr. Macron, his measures are rubbish, you have to help us.”
Since the start of the agricultural crisis, the first opposition party has presented itself as a true defender of farmers with a clear objective: France must regain its food sovereignty, that is to say, according to the RN, guarantee food security by removing France from dependence on external imports, and encouraging the consumption of quality products by imposing stricter control on the products available on the market.
Unfair competition
In this context, the main obstacle to food sovereignty lies in the “unfair competition” to which French farmers are victims. French farms are in direct competition with foreign producers who benefit from more flexible labor laws which are almost non-existent in certain countries, advantageous taxation and much less permissive health and environmental standards.
“We are putting our agriculture in unfair competition with countries which do not have the same social standards, which engage in social and environmental dumping,” explains RN deputy and wine grower in the Médoc Grégoire de Fournas. The distortion of competition with the rest of the world is a reality that is difficult to contest. For example, French poultry producers are subject to Ukrainian competition, whose producers have, since May 2022, been exempt from import duties in Europe. However, French producers are forced to follow strict regulations on the use of antibiotics or minimum cage sizes, which is not the case for their Ukrainian counterparts. These differences in production costs are reflected in the price, a French chicken fillet costs on average 6.80 euros per kilo compared to 3.16 euros per kilo for a Ukrainian chicken fillet.
The exit from free trade treaties
Faced with this observation, “we must remove agriculture from European free trade treaties”, assures Grégoire de Fournas. To encourage the export of certain of its products outside European borders, the EU agrees to facilitate the import of extra-European agricultural products into its market. For the RN, this amounts to sacrificing the interests of French agriculture for the benefit of those of the industrial sectors of other European countries: “We refuse that agriculture is an adjustment variable making it possible to promote exports of German cars” again denounces Grégoire de Fournas. In certain free trade agreements, agriculture is in fact a loser, “this is the case in the treaties with New Zealand or with Mercosur”, confirms the economics professor at AgroParisTech Jean-Christophe Bureau.
The exclusion of agricultural issues from multilateral free trade treaties would inevitably lead to negative consequences in other sectors directly or indirectly concerned by these treaties. For example, leaving the EU-Chile agreement would be detrimental to the French automobile industry, because as Jean-Christophe Bureau explains to us, “an industrial company like Peugeot is in direct competition with Korean automobile manufacturing companies which benefit from free trade agreements with this country, exempting them from paying customs duties.
Furthermore, the idea that French agriculture would be the big loser from free trade agreements needs to be qualified because of the great differences that exist within the agricultural sector itself. Certainly, certain French producers, such as beef and pork breeders with the Ceta (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, between the EU and Canada) or sugar and soy producers with the agreement between the EU and the countries of the Mercosur bloc (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay), are weakened by the treaties. On the other hand, certain agricultural sectors take advantage of these agreements to increase their exports. The agreement between the EU and Japan (Jefta), by reducing tariff barriers for wine, cheese and European pork, has favored French agricultural exports to the country of the rising sun.
The renegotiation of free trade agreements would therefore not benefit all farmers equally, and there is nothing to suggest that the winners would be more numerous than the losers. The economist and professor at ESCP Jean-Marc Daniel assures us that “exiting free trade treaties would be an absurd idea, because it would ignore the fact that the partners with whom we signed these treaties will adopt measures of retaliation, even though the French agricultural sector is generating trade surpluses. Simply put, “we would make Cognac producers pay for maintaining chicken producers,” he quips.
By claiming that the exit from free trade treaties would only have an impact on the industry of our European neighbors, the RN is ignoring what appears to be an obvious contradiction. How to pretend, as is the case in their program for the 2022 presidential election, want to establish an “economic patriotism to reindustrialize and produce wealth in France” while defending the exit from trade agreements which would have terrible consequences on certain French industrial sectors? The reality that the RN refuses to face is that the interests of France and the French are not homogeneous, and sometimes even appear incompatible. Critical of the Macronian “at the same time”, the National Rally condemns itself to practicing it itself when it claims to simultaneously defend farmers and workers.
Chimerical food sovereignty
Furthermore, a study recently published by the Joint Research Center of the European Commission suggests that these agreements should make it possible to create new markets for European agri-food products. Contrary to what the leaders of the National Rally assert, these free trade treaties would not necessarily compromise the food sovereignty of European countries: “The EU will be less dependent on a limited number of trading partners for basic products, which will improve the resilience of EU food supply chains and help strengthen food security for European consumers.”
Especially since this food sovereignty to which the RN alludes is largely chimerical. For Jean-Christophe Bureau, “the conventional and productivist agriculture that the National Rally defends depends in any case on imported inputs, nitrogen comes from Vietnam or Qatar, phosphate from Morocco, potash from Russia, and a lot of molecules of phytosanitary products come from countries like China. According to the economist “the sovereignty that the RN speaks of is an artificial sovereignty, since a chicken raised in France is imported soya on its feet! If we want real sovereignty, we should have farms that depend less on imported inputs.”
Standards and decline
In his thematic booklet on agriculture presenting the program of candidate Marine Le Pen for the 2022 presidential election, the RN denounced the “European bureaucracy and its deluge of standards”, and over-transpositions (the fact of adding measures which are not necessary to the adoption of the Community directive) as factors of unfair competition for our farmers. Health and environmental standards, insists the RN, complicate their work by drowning them in administrative work, reduce yields and ultimately harm the productivity of farms.
However, the RN has long promoted local agriculture, short circuits and small and medium-sized farms. Today, Marine Le Pen no longer hesitates to support conventional agriculture (agricultural practices using so-called “intensive” methods, such as the use of chemical pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, GMOs). In its sights, de-escalating political ecology, which according to the RN bears great responsibility for the multiplication of standards. The Green Deal and the strategy adopted in October 2021 by the European Commission “Farm to Fork” (“from farm to fork”, whose objective is to move towards “a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system”) clearly display, according to Grégoire de Fournas, “the Commission’s desire to carry out a agricultural policy of degrowth”.
To respond to the problem of the too low remuneration of certain farmers, the RN has long proposed the setting of a minimum price for the sale of agricultural products to manufacturers taking into account variations in the prices of raw materials. But recently, Jordan Bardella has sowed doubt as to the position of the RN on the issue, by implying his opposition to floor prices, mentioned by Emmanuel Macron: “If you put in place floor prices at the French level, it is a poverty trap because precisely we will turn to the European market, and if you put in place in a completely chimerical way floor prices at the European level, we will go to obtain our supplies on international markets” he declared during the his visit to the Agricultural Show. Accused of saying everything and its opposite, Bardella then returned to his remarks by pleading clumsiness.
However, as Grégoire de Fournas points out to us, without border regulation and exit or renegotiation of free trade treaties, the establishment of a minimum price would be a counterproductive measure, “from the moment we increases the price of French agricultural production, we favor foreign imports which are cheaper. This is not viable.”
A project that is difficult to implement
To implement its program, the RN should therefore not only succeed in convincing or forcing the European Commission to renegotiate free trade treaties or leave them, but also return to the free movement of goods within the EU. Without these changes at the European level, the National Rally would not have the means, for example, to require a compote manufacturer to purchase French products. “The industrialist who wishes to produce compotes at competitive prices will buy his apples in Poland or Chile,” adds economist Thierry Pouch. “Since we are in a European area of free movement of goods, we cannot impose a duty customs duties on Poland. We could consider suspending the agreement with Chile, but I don’t know who in the Commission would agree to take such a decision today…”.
Certainly, France is not completely helpless within European bodies. As Thierry Pouch explains to us, “our country, as the leading European agricultural power, certainly has the means to put pressure on it, given that it produces 18% of the agricultural production of the 27 and a quarter of the total cereal production “. But if French interests could be defended with a little more firmness at the European level, we remain far from the “Europe of free and sovereign nations”. Even if Marine Le Pen wins in 2027, the success of such a project is far from assured.
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