“Farmers are waiting for coherent measures,” Arnaud Rousseau, president of the FNSEA, declared on Wednesday on X. After several days of mobilization by farmers, who notably set up roadblocks on several axes of the country, the main agricultural union transmitted its list of demands to the government. The FNSEA says it expects a “strong structural change”. Representatives of the union – like those of the Agricultural Coordination, the second representative organization – met the Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture on Monday. Gabriel Attal also brings together the ministers of Agriculture, Ecological Transition and the Economy on Thursday. The first measures should be announced on Thursday or Friday, we learned from consistent sources within the executive.
In a joint press release published Wednesday, the FNSEA and the Young Farmers union focus their demands around three axes: “the dignity of farmers”, “fair remuneration for their work” and “the need to re-establish conditions for exercising the profession acceptable.”
Maintaining tax relief on fuel
Unsurprisingly, and in accordance with what farmers have said on the subject, the FNSEA is calling for measures following the gradual abandonment of a tax rebate on fuel. GNR, non-road diesel, used by farmers in tractors, is today subject to a reduction in taxation for the benefit of farmers. But after negotiations led by the government with the FNSEA, a gradual elimination of this aid spread until 2030 has been scheduled, with the aim of encouraging professionals to consume less.
On this point, the union is now demanding “full compensation for all […] via the immediate implementation of the tax credit and the integration of the amount currently reimbursed into the price paid.
Guarantee “absolute compliance with EGAlim laws”
“Fair remuneration is essential to promote the work of farmers and give them perspectives and clarity about the future,” write the FNSEA and the Young Farmers. “This long-standing problem must find its answer in the full application of the EGAlim laws and their state of mind by building the price forward.”
The EGAlim laws, the first of which was passed in 2018, the second in 2021 and the third in March 2023, aim to protect farmers’ remuneration by regulating negotiations with large retailers. The EGAlim 2 law thus prohibited the negotiation of the price of raw materials by supermarkets. But the unions criticize mass distribution players for not respecting the text. According to Agricultural Cooperation, certain distributors “deny the principle of non-negotiability of the price of agricultural raw materials and refuse to recognize the increase in industrial production costs (energy and wages)”.
The release of European aid
The first agricultural union also demanded in its demands transmitted to the government the “payment of all CAP aid [politique agricole commune européenne] immediately, whatever the reasons for non-payment”, as well as “payment as quickly as possible of all health and climate compensation […] owed by the State” and their tax exemption.
The FNSEA’s list of demands also mentions the need to “immediately help the sectors most in crisis: viticulture and organic agriculture”, victims of inflationary pressures.
The demands of agricultural unions have gone up a notch regarding European regulations: they are no longer only asking for an end to “overtranspositions” of European regulations by France, but are demanding the removal of existing measures.
A “moratorium” on pesticides
The unions had already spoken out against certain European provisions, in particular concerning the obligation to maintain fallow 4% of farms necessary to receive certain subsidies. The European Green Deal, a set of measures for the ecological transition of EU member states, had provoked lively debates among part of the agricultural world.
Other measures are now targeted by farmers, such as that concerning non-treatment zones with phytosanitary products (ZNT), where treatment with pesticides is prohibited near homes or watercourses. The 2021 “water plan” decree, which regulates water withdrawals for agriculture in the face of droughts, is also criticized.
The unions are also demanding a “moratorium on bans” on pesticides and a “rejection of Ecophyto”, the government plan which aims to halve the use of pesticides by 2030, compared to 2015-2017.