Prime Minister Gabriel Attal will make several announcements to respond to farmers’ demands, during a press conference organized in Matignon this Wednesday from 9 a.m.
Three days before the start of the Agricultural Show, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal will hold a press conference in Matignon this Wednesday, February 21 from 9 a.m. to try to dissipate the anger of farmers and respond to their demands. It should detail the “main orientations” of the agricultural bill while exposing “the monitoring and execution” of the aid measures announced at the start of the year.
A rewrite of the agriculture bill
First of all, Gabriel Attal should discuss the rewriting of the agricultural bill, suspended since the start of the farmers’ crisis, as indicated by his entourage to AFP. Announcements which will be closely scrutinized by the agricultural world and which arouse a lot of expectation, “no one imagines that he (the president) can, like every year, parade through the aisles without having had a strong, clear statement and to listen to the agricultural world which has demands to make” indicated this Monday Arnaud Rousseau, the president of the FNSEA, the leading agricultural union force in the country.
This is why Gabriel Attal’s press conference is crucial. The Prime Minister should also return in more detail to the monitoring and measures announced a little earlier in February by the executive, while new actions have already been announced by farmers to make their discontent heard. In particular, punchy actions at the Salon de l’Agriculture could take place.
Egalim law, profession in tension… Movement this Wednesday
Gabriel Attal could also mention the launch of a parliamentary mission on an evolution of the Egalim law, so that the “farmers’ cost of production” is better taken into account. The publication of a decree allowing all agricultural sectors to be declared as “professions in shortage” is also in the works. This novelty would make it easier to use foreign labor, as indicated by Gabriel Attal in Le Figaro, Tuesday February 20.
This Tuesday, precisely, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron met the FNSEA and the Young Farmers in Matignon in the presence of Gabriel Attal, the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau and his delegate minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher. “We have progress, pledges, signals going in the right direction, but it is not yet enough at the moment” indicated Pierrick Horel, president of the Young Farmers at the end of the meeting. Response this Wednesday, February 21 following the Prime Minister’s press conference to be fixed.