Less than five months before the election, the far-right party is at the side of farmers, who are demanding financial support from the government.
He had come to denounce “Macron’s Europe, Who wants the death of our agriculture”. The president of the National Rally (RN), Jordan Bardella, went to Queyrac (Gironde) to meet angry farmers on Saturday January 20. The head of the far-right party list in the European elections advocated “economic patriotism” and rebelled against “normative inflation” denounced by many farmers. In the crosshairs of the politician, interviewed on TF1’s “13 Heures” with his feet in the mud: Brussels.
Faced with a Macronist camp worried about the risk of conflagration, Marine Le Pen’s party intends to position itself as the defender of French farmers, approximately five months before the European elections (June 9 in France). THE news actions promised during the week by the head of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA), Arnaud Rousseau, on France Inter, are all opportunities for the party to spread its message. “We will surely go to meet the farmers at the blocking points” And “continue to explain our program”assured France Télévisions an RN deputy before Jordan Bardella’s trip to Gironde.
Examples from the Netherlands and Germany
The RN’s offensive with farmers “corresponds to the party agenda”, political scientist Eddy Fougier explains to franceinfo. “Today, there is a desire to capitalize on this anger of farmers towards national institutions, political elites, Brussels and the European Green Deal.lists the specialist, co-author of a note on “farmers and the FN vote”, in October 2016.
Officially, the RN sweeps aside any desire to “capitalize” on this anger. But the far-right party is carefully watching the attitude of its European allies, such as Alternative for Germany (AFD) and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, who are also riding on the anger of the agricultural world, grumbles for multiple reasons in Europe. Across the Rhine, it is the removal of financial aid for fuel which is at the origin of the discontent. In the Netherlands, it was the nitrogen ban that pushed farmers into the streets.
The strategy paid off in the Netherlands, with the explosion of the populist vote in local elections last spring and the victory of the far right in legislative elections at the end of the year. Conversely, German farmers are currently rejecting the AFD’s attempts at recovery. “We do not want right-wing and radical groups who want to overthrow the government during our demonstrations”the president of the German Farmers’ Association, Joachim Rukwied, was indignant at the beginning of January to the newspaper Bild.
“Create the duel with the majority”
Dutch and German farmers have in common their denunciation of the introduction of measures aimed at combating global warming, particularly linked to the EU’s climate neutrality objectives. Prime targets for the RN. “The EU imposes drastic standards on pesticides and encourages agricultural decline”, says Edwige Diaz, RN deputy for Gironde, to franceinfo. Opposite, the government is trying to counter the offensive of the far right on the subject. The RN “seeks to blow on the embers of farmers’ anger and despair, but it is only electoral opportunism for the European elections”declared Friday to La Dépêche du Midi Marc Fesneau, Minister of Agriculture.
For the RN, the issue does not only concern the vote of farmers, who represented 1.5% of the active population in 2019, according to INSEE. “It’s not a big dealrecognizes an RN deputy from France Télévisions. But the subject allows us to create the duel with the majority and to anchor the date of June 9.”
Immune to the FN (ex-RN) vote until 2002 and the qualification of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the second round, as Eddy Fougier reminds us, could farmers move massively to the extreme right in France? “I don’t see farmers turning massively to the RN. They are not fooled by the speeches of Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, who are not specialists on the subject”anticipates François Purseigle, sociologist at the National Agronomic School of Toulouse, in an interview with La Dépêche du Midi. Cautious, Eddy Fougier only mentions for the moment “suppositions” on the farmers’ vote in a few months.
“Farmers are pragmatic, they will vote for the candidates or lists who are likely to come to power.”
Eddy Fougier, political scientistat franceinfo
“Farmers are one of the professions that vote the most. If abstention increases, it is already a signal”warns Eddy Fougier. “We have three challenges before us: the dispersion of votes, the demobilization of voters who can say that Jordan [Bardella] will win, and abstention, because the European Union may appear distant from the concerns”details Edwige Diaz. “Among people disillusioned because betrayed, the RN could be a victim of the failure of other parties, indirectly”adds the parliamentarian.
Before the June 9 deadline, two other events are being scrutinized by the RN as well as by the rest of the political spectrum: the presentation of the bill on agriculture, postponed from “a few weeks” as announced by Marc Fesneau, as well as the International Agricultural Show (SIA), at the end of February. “On the agricultural level, this is an absolutely crucial issue”insists Eddy Fougier. “If no solution is found by then, I’ll let you imagine the images for the government”, slips Edwige Diaz. In the fields of Médoc or the spans of the great French agricultural raid, the National Rally remains in ambush.