Reaching the associations that fight for animal welfare in the portfolio: this is in essence the objective of an amendment adopted by the finance committee of the National Assembly in the finance bill, tabled by the deputy Les Républicains Côtes-d’Armor, Marc Le Fur, support from the agricultural world.
This controversial text aims to fight against “agribashing“by excluding from tax reduction donations to associations whose members “are found guilty of acts of intrusion” into agricultural holdings and industrial establishments. In the viewfinder: one of the associations mainly targeted is L214, which s is notably made known to the general public by his videos shot in intensive farms.
“We are trying here to prevent associations from carrying out this alert work and to ensure that our agricultural and food model can evolve”denounces Barbara Boyer, the director of the association.
“We see that this is a request from the FNSEA in particular, the majority agricultural union, which promotes a productivist model. This is also what the meat manufacturers are asking for.”
Barbara Boyer (L214)at franceinfo
According to the text, donations to an association are no longer deductible if one of these members is found guilty of an act of trespassing on a farm or an industrial building. This is not the first attempt by MP Marc Le Fur: “Everyone has the right to express their positions, but no one has the right to go into people’s homes to attack people individually, says the parliamentarian. This is why we consider that the State has no right to financially encourage such attitudes. It has to be put to an end, and my colleagues were kind enough to follow me on this issue.”
However, the amendment should not pass the constitutional filter, believes Antoine Gatet, jurist and vice-president of France nature environnement: “We come to sanction an association for facts which would possibly be facts of the members of the association, whereas an association like France nature environment has 900,000… The second legal fragility, and it is a basic illegality , is that trespassing on agricultural properties is not something forbidden: in law, there is confusion with the protection of homes or agricultural and industrial buildings.
Since 2019, the government has been suspected of siding with the main agricultural union in the debate and tensions around sharing nature and animal welfare. Thus, a police cell “Demeter” was specially formed. She was recently censured by the administrative court, which considered that the government had gone too far in the allocation of its missions.