concern grows within the French Biodiversity Office

The OFB has been in turmoil since the start of the farmers’ mobilization.

The premises of the French Biodiversity Office (OFB) were once again targeted on Friday February 2. Manure was spilled and straw walls erected in front of an OFB branch in Mende in Lozère by around forty farmers from the Rural Coordination. A week earlier, it was the headquarters of the French Biodiversity Office in Carcassonne, in Aude, which was targeted on Saturday January 27. OFB agents, responsible for enforcing the Environmental Code, say they are helpless in the face of accusations of harassment and incessant checks. And they denounce a “letting go of the government”.

Buildings sprayed with slurry, even set on fire, agents threatened or targeted personally, not to mention a Prime Minister aligned with the demands of the FNSEA. “From now on, the OFB will be under the supervision of the prefect, announced Gabriel Attal to farmers on Friday January 26. Do you really have to come armed when you come to check a hedge?”

For Guillaume Rulin, EFA-CGC union coordinator, this is unacceptable: “It was a complicated week and we felt like scapegoats for the problems of the agricultural world. Clearly, most of the agents are really supporting the agricultural world today and finding themselves put at fault like this by our own administration, it was very, very hard to live.”

On a daily basis, the 3,000 agents of the French Biodiversity Office are responsible for various missions: controlling hunting and fishing, combating poaching, managing water resources and developing environmental projects. And then there are obviously these controls on agricultural operations. 2,700 checks were carried out in 2023. This remains limited, assures Guillaume Rulin: “We have 400 000 farms, so we controlled barely 0.75% of farms in France. There are only 86 that have been the subject of a breach report. So when we talk about harassment and pressure from OFB agents on the agricultural world, we were surprised.”

The OFB called into question

These checks are now suspended and agents are worried. For Véronique Caraco-Giordano, general secretary of the national environmental union, it is the OFB’s raison d’être that is at stake: “There is danger, yes, physical for the agents. So yes, there is a fear, a concern to know what is expected of us. Because we are invested agents, very concerned by what is happening at the level of degradation of biodiversity and the environment in general. And today, we are asked to slow down, to no longer notice that offenses are taking place.” laments the trade unionist.

And for her, the support shown Thursday by Christophe Béchu remains insufficient. The Minister of Ecological Transition is planning a new meeting with OFB agents next week to try to reassure them.