“We need to knit and unravel all the regulations that are contradictory,” argues Marc Fesneau

The Minister of Agriculture promises in particular to remove the 14 regulations relating to the presence of hedges on farms in order to keep only one.

The day after the announcements by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal intended to respond to the angry movement of farmers, the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, guest of franceinfo, once again pleads for a “simplification” regulations.“We have to knit and unravel all the regulations that are contradictory.”

The current situation, described as “madness” by the minister, is the result, believes Marc Fesneau, of a “decades of sedimentation” of periods, causing “a feeling of incomprehension” among farmers, “and deep down, a feeling of contempt”. “SStructurally, it’s madness”insists Marc Fesneau, adding that it is imperative “let us knit and unravel all the regulations which are contradictory”.

The Minister of Agriculture takes the example of legal provisions which require land to be cleared and those which aim to preserve ecosystems: “In the Var, there is a turtle called the Hermann’s turtle. It is very protected and its main risk is fire. But we cannot clear brush because there is a site of reproduction. Result of the races, we do not bush, and in the end, the turtles die because the fires progress. Do you see the contradiction? When the objective is to protect an ecosystem. And to protect it , we have to be able to clear the brush.”

“It needs to be simpler, more readable”

Also invited to speak on the issue of hedges and its fourteen regulations which farmers have talked about a lot since the start of their mobilization, Marc Fesneau, declares: “It’s very emblematic because basically, we have the most severe regulations in the world, the most supervised in the world and that hasn’t prevented the disappearance of hedges.” These hedges “disappeared” many farms, continues the minister, “because when you have fourteen regulations, to be calm, the best thing is not to have any hedges.”

It is not necessary, insists Marc Fesneau, “to make a regulation which is the complicated sum of the fourteen, it must be simpler, more readable and the regulations must not contradict each other. So the objective is a single regulation, itself simplified. “

Generally speaking, for the Minister of Agriculture, “Regulation serves public policy. If it does the opposite of what we want, let’s question the regulation and simplify it.”