Michel Barnier announces guaranteed loans, 75 million euros for sheep breeders

Traveling to the Livestock Summit, the Prime Minister also estimated that a future official assessment of the number of wolves in France would put on the table the question of a possible increase in the number of slaughters.

Michel Barnier at the bedside of sheep breeders. Traveling on Friday October 4 to the Livestock Summit in Cournon-d’Auvergne (Puy-de-Dôme), the Prime Minister announced “an envelope of 75 million euros” and promised “loans guaranteed by the State for farms that need them”while the herds are decimated by a new epizootic.

Emergency aid is intended in particular to “dealing with BTF (bluetongue) serotype 3”, a new serotype “which is emerging and not taken into account” in existing compensation systems, he explained.

Evoking another concern of sheep breeders, the Prime Minister also estimated that a future official assessment of the number of wolves in France would put on the table the question of a possible increase in the number of slaughters. The meeting of the National Wolf Committee, mid-December, “will confirm the assessment of the number of wolves in the country, see the damage that has been done. And I think this is a key moment to increase the harvesting capacity”, he said, quoting “the damage that the wolf does to many farms, breaking the morale of breeders”.

France has around a thousand wolves and the slaughter quota is set at 19% of the population recorded per year. The Prime Minister thus welcomed on Friday the fact that there was “a movement on this issue towards less ideology and more pragmatism at the European level”after Member States gave the green light to lower the animal’s protection status.

Finally, Michel Barnier assured that he did not “not forgotten” the anger of farmers last winter. The former Minister of Agriculture reaffirmed that the agricultural orientation law, passed in May in the National Assembly, would continue its journey to the Senate, where it will be “placed on the agenda for January, as soon as possible after the budget”. Highly awaited by the sector, it must implement a large part of the demands expressed during the demonstrations at the beginning of the year.