Discontent had been brewing for several months in the agricultural world but it was difficult for the government to anticipate a major crisis, in the face of multiple demands and without union support.
The angry movement of farmers which has continued for more than two weeks throughout France did not begin in mid-January with the blocking of the A64 motorway. “The tension was already very strong, it was brewing”, sighs a member of the majority. From the fall, the beginnings of the agricultural world’s fed-up were expressed through signs of French villages and towns toppled at the entrance to towns. The operation, called “We walk on the head” and led in particular by Young Farmers, aims to denounce the multiplication of standards – sometimes contradictory – which govern agricultural activities.
The movement left Tarn at the end of October. “We met with the federal office and we wondered how to carry out an operation to show that we are being asked for everything and its opposite”, says Frédéric Florenchie, president of the department’s FDSEA. Young Farmers are responsible for “find an idea”. “They offered us the panels and we validated it.” Very quickly, the operation spread throughout the territory. “The government saw nothingnotes again Fredéric Florenchie. It started from us, then in Occitanie, then throughout the South, in France and even in Germany!”
“The signs were the first sign”
The president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF), David Lisnard (LR), gives them his support. “Our young farmers are right: we are walking on our heads!”he assured on December 4 in a forum at Point. In the presidential camp, elected officials, specialists in agricultural issues, are starting to worry. “The signs were the first sign of lack of confidence. When they reversed the sign for the town of Baud [dans le Morbihan] At the end of the year, I went to talk with them and told them that they were right about the administrative burden.”, relates Nicole Le Peih, Renaissance MP for Morbihan. The elected official, a farmer by profession, is herself in the process of passing on her short-circuit poultry operation and her Charolais suckling cow workshop.
“The overturned signs are a weak signal which was undoubtedly minimized, we did not really look at who participated, whether there were unionized people or not”, admits Pascal Lavergne, Renaissance deputy for Gironde, but also breeder and agricultural advisor. Like other local or national elected officials, he receives “dozens of messages from farmers saying that their cash flow is collapsing, that they no longer have income or that they are receiving bailiffs”.
But many admit that it was impossible to anticipate a major crisis on a national scale. “I had the feeling that there could be several local crises: the cherry in Ardèche, the fishermen and wine growers, the disease epizootic hemorrhagic disease which affects animals in the South-West… In short, these are different territories and different demands”says another member of the majority.
A lack of territorial anchoring
In their constituency, Macronist elected officials raise the multiple grievances of farmers and wonder what more they could have done. “There are 140 grievances, they don’t all want the same thing, it’s complicated”delivers MP Ludovic Mendès.
“We didn’t have a: ‘Be careful, it’s going to blow!’ I received the unions in my office and each time they contacted me, they received responses from the ministry.”
Ludovic Mendès, Renaissance deputy for Moselleat franceinfo
If messages from the field were transmitted to the government, were they heard? “The tragedy is that we tend not to listen too much to parliamentarians. Furthermore, if they carry different messages, you are preaching in the desert,” confides, a bit bitter, Pascal Lavergne.
“When we saw the increase in the GNR tax in the 2024 finance bill, we all said that it was annoying, that it was RN ballot stuffing.”
Pascal Lavergne, Renaissance deputy for Girondeat franceinfo
In the presidential camp, some also point out “the original sins of macronism”. “We have no sensors, the party has never established a territorial network. The panels were turned over, some councilors thought it was the fantasy of a few municipalities”relates a former government advisor. “When you have half of the ministers who are Parisians with young advisors who also come from the capital, in terms of connection with the territories, it’s a bit average,” supports another.
However, many of them recognize the investment of the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, on the subject. “He has been warning about this crisis for months”assures an elected representative of the majority, close to him. “It’s quite ungrateful what’s happening to him, he doesn’t open his mouth publicly and people think he’s inactive, but he fights like a lion,” agrees a deputy. And the same to refer rather to Matignon: “When we relayed the messages, it was very narrow-minded, technocratic, ‘we took note’. The level of listening and political support is no longer the same today, I am in constant contact with the cabinet of Attal.”
“Even the unions didn’t see it coming”
False, retorts a former executive advisor. “We were closely monitoring the situation and the Prime Minister saw the union organizations on December 5 with measures taken such as the abandonment of the fee for withdrawal from water resources for irrigation as well as the renunciation of the increase in the fee for diffuse pollution (RPD), collected on pesticide sales. They left satisfied with this exchange.” The president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, had actually considered having “been heard” and found “attentive listening from the Prime Minister”. The Young Farmers had made the same speech.
At the end of the meeting with @Elisabeth_Borne an update on the union demands and the responses obtained.
A satisfactory meeting during which @gaillot_arnaud And @rousseautrocy received attentive listening. pic.twitter.com/Nb17v6DlQJ— Young Farmers (@JeunesAgri) December 5, 2023
Except that the deep malaise of the agricultural world has partly escaped the unions. On the A64, it was in particular Jérôme Bayle, who has since become one of the figures of the protest, who launched the blockade of the motorway, outside of any union framework. “We can’t see the crisis coming if even the unions don’t see it coming,” notes Ludovic Mendès. “I had seen the crisis coming but perhaps not of this magnitude and not as organized”, complete Nicole Le Peih.
At the end of the year, the news that occupied all the minds of the macronie was elsewhere. “We were stuck with our heads in the immigration law,” remembers a member of the majority. While parliamentarians were fighting over the government’s text, in the countryside, anger was growing.