what are the demands of the unions addressed to the government?

The FNSEA and the Young Farmers (JA) have sent a list of around a hundred measures. They are calling in particular for “immediate” aid and a reduction in environmental constraints.

They urge the government to take into account “the entirety” of their grievances. To emerge from the crisis, the FNSEA and the Young Farmers sent a list of around a hundred demands to the government on Wednesday January 24, according to information from franceinfo. These requests were grouped into 24 points.

“It is not a basis for negotiations, it is a complete request in which there is no question of shopping”, warned Arnaud Rousseau, the president of the FNSEA. Franceinfo lists their main requests, the cost of which is estimated by the FNSEA at “several hundred million euros”.

An increase in remuneration

Beyond already known requests, such as “clear refusal” free trade agreements, these two agricultural unions are demanding “immediate answers on remuneration” including emergency aid to “sectors most in crisis: viticulture and organic agriculture”. The president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, had already requested in April 2023, just after his arrival at the head of the union, emergency aid of “50 to 100 million euros” to help organic producers. The Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau announced the following month a “crisis envelope” of 60 million euros accompanied by measures to stimulate demand.

The two agricultural unions also want a commitment to “ensure absolute compliance with Egalim laws” of 2018 and 2021 on the sharing of value between actors in the French food chain, via “reinforced controls throughout the territory”. They also require the “payment of all CAP (common European agricultural policy) aid immediately whatever the reasons for non-payment”as well as “payment as quickly as possible of all health and climate compensation (…) owed by the State” and their tax exemption.

Compensation for GNR

While the planned increase in taxation of non-road diesel (GNR), a fuel used in tractors, was one of the factors triggering the anger of the agricultural world, the unions want “guarantee full compensation for all (…) via the immediate implementation of the tax credit and the integration of the amount currently reimbursed into the price paid”according to the document sent to the government.

The end of GNR tax exemption for farmers and construction companies corresponds to the executive’s desire to increase tax revenue in line with ecology “to shift our brown taxation, which encourages the consumption of fossil fuels, towards a taxation which promotes green investments”emphasized Bruno Le Maire in September.

A reduction in standards

In the longer term, the unions are calling for the implementation of a “standards reduction project”, particularly environmental. On the latter, the FNSEA and the Young Farmers are no longer only asking for an end to “overtranspositions”i.e. more extensive applications of European regulations than expected, but also to remove existing measures.

In the viewfinder: rules relating to the use of phytosanitary products and water withdrawals, as well as the French Biodiversity Office. “What we are asking is for France to go back on all the rules which are not the same rules as at European level. You will never be able to make farmers love Europe if you make rules which penalize them against other farmers”argued Arnaud Gaillot, the president of the Young Farmers.