“Yannick Jadot made a mistake”, launches lobbyist Thierry Coste with a big smile. By proposing, on October 29, to end the hunts “cruel” and to ban the practice of this activity on weekends and during school holidays, the environmental presidential candidate has unleashed the ire of hunters. “He reproduces the same error as Dominique Voynet [ancienne ministre de l’Environnement] at the beginning of the 2000s. He will unite the hunters by hitting them “, considers the political advisor of the National Federation of Hunters (FNC), finishing his espresso, in a cafe in the 7th arrondissement of Paris where he has his habits.
Well-versed in the exercise of influence, this former farmer also claims to be “rural advisor” unofficial of the President of the Republic. “I advise him on a personal and friendly basis, but I am not in the organization chart of the Elysée”, he specifies. The man still boasts of having whispered in the ear of the last four presidents, from Jacques Chirac to Emmanuel Macron via Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande. By resigning in 2018 from his Ministry of Ecological Transition, Nicolas Hulot had also denounced the presence of this lobbyist at a meeting on the hunt at the Elysee Palace.
“Jadot made a mistake and we said to ourselves ‘to take advantage of it’, moreover our base asks us to react”, continues the hunter. For several days, the followers of the hunt have therefore been deployed in the media to say how badly they thought of the proposal of the candidate EELV. Yannick Jadot “surfs on people’s fear in a totally demagogic way”, for example estimated on November 2 in Le Figaro Willy Schraen, President of the FNC.
Hunters are not immune to questions about recent accidents involving walkers or motorists, but they never cease to point out that this type of drama has been on the decline for twenty years and that efforts have been made in terms of safety. To carry this message and shoot on sight the ecological proposals, they can count on many political relays. Since the beginning of the summer, the FNC has started a tour of meetings with declared or putative presidential candidates to defend the interests of hunters. “With Zemmour, it went very well. With Fabien Roussel [candidat du PCF] also, we have excellent relations and we have to see him again “, slips Thierry Coste. “President Schraen has met a number of candidates, and there will undoubtedly be other meetings to come”, confirms Nicolas Rivet, director general of the FNC.
For the candidates, the hunt for votes has begun and it is difficult for them not to meet representatives of rural areas. In the heart of summer, Michel Barnier went to see waterfowl hunters in the Bay of Somme. “He goes to meet the actors of the country, so it is normal to also see the hunters”, explains Daniel Fasquelle. The mayor of Touquet (Pas-de-Calais), former deputy and support of Michel Barnier for the primary of the Republicans, organized a meeting between the candidate and his “friend” Willy Schraen. “We have been fighting together for years with Willy, together we prepared amendments on hunting that I tabled in the Assembly”, tells the elected LR.
“It is not a reservoir of voices that he (Michel Barnier) meets, but actors of rurality, nature lovers.”
Daniel Fasquelle, LR mayor of Le Touquetto franceinfo
For his part, Eric Zemmour also met Willy Schraen, but he also attended a dinner with hunters. “He was able to recall that he was for the respect of traditions and lifestyles of each, says Antoine Diers, spokesperson for the association of friends of Eric Zemmour. He doesn’t take everything as a whole, but he listens. He is aware that he is not in the best position on these issues, so he is ready to listen to finalize his proposals. “ During a recent trip to Biarritz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), the polemicist in any case defended “traditional hunts”.
To complete their lobbying, the hunters have planned to give a great oral presentation to the various candidates during the General Assembly of the FNC, on March 21 and 22, 2022. “The presidential candidates will be invited to give their vision and their positions on the hunt, explains Nicolas Rivet, director general of the FNC. We will not give voting instructions, but the objective is to inform about the sensitivities of each other. ”
On the side of the Mouvement de la ruralité, a political movement of hunters rooted on the right, we are waiting for the result of the LR congress to decide. “It is obvious that we will not support Valérie Pécresse, who has often turned her back on our movement”, warned in the JDD Eddie Puyjalon, who seems more inclined to get along with Xavier Bertrand or Michel Barnier. He also reveals to have been contacted by Eric Zemmour but nuance: “He went out on slime hunting a few months ago which I didn’t like. He’ll have to clarify his speech”.
The far-right essayist is trying to get closer to rurality, because he knows that he can, in this electorate, score points vis-à-vis Marine Le Pen. The RN candidate had however developed in 2017 a campaign strategy around the rural world and the “France of the forgotten”, corn “she seems to have forgotten her”, laughs the lobbyist Thierry Coste.
“Marine Le Pen got carried away by an animalist trend, by the David Rachlines, the Bruno Bilde … They are more ‘dogs and cats’, in ‘Do not touch my animal’ mode”.
Thierry Coste, political advisor to the National Federation of Huntersto franceinfo
In March, Marine Le Pen declared herself against hunting with hounds “personally”. The sentence did not go unnoticed. “And what will tomorrow be? Will she be against waterfowl hunting?”, recently confided to franceinfo a hunter of Crotoy (Somme).
For hunters, the presidential election is therefore the culmination of intense lobbying work carried out to the top of the state. Anne-Laurence Petel, LREM MP for Bouches-du-Rhône, member of the animal condition group, was not the first of the targets, but she still received “a musical greeting card and an e-mail from Thierry Coste concerning traditional hunts”.
The MP notes an evolution of hunters, who are heading towards “an American-style com”, with the objective of seducing public opinion and putting an end to the caricature of the drunken and gruff hunter. “At the Assembly, they recently brought in their new muse, Johanna Clermont, a young lobbyist, who poses naked or in positions not possible on social networks”, illustrates Anne-Laurence Petel. Beyond lobbying, the parliamentarian denounces “a kind of underlying pressure via the voters on the territories” that it was able to observe during the municipal elections in Aix-en-Provence, after having signed a forum on the animal condition.
“Lobbyists are both into seduction and electoral threat, like ‘we can be partners, but we can also be enemies, and if we are enemies, it can go very badly'”, explains LREM deputy Jacques Maire, who has very bad memories of the hunting lobby during his time at the environment ministry as Dominique Voynet’s chief of staff.
To exert this pressure, the hunters play on their electoral weight, real or supposed. Thierry Coste thus evokes the figure of four million practitioners. “We have a million permits, but we have a high turnover. Hunting is not their exclusive filter for voting, but they are sensitive to the question, especially in the face of extreme proposals like those of Jadot”, he believes.
“Willy Schraen managed to sell Macron his lobbying of three to four million hunters, but we do not believe it”, answers Matthieu Orphelin, spokesperson for Yannick Jadot, who prefers to rely on opinion polls showing French people wanting better supervision of this practice. According to a 2018 Ipsos poll, only 19% of French people are in favor of hunting. “Not all hunters vote as Willy Schraen wishes. And the latter does not represent all practitioners, some say they feel poorly represented by his permanent excesses.”, assures the deputy.
“Willy Schraen has the strength and the place given to him by Emmanuel Macron.”
Matthieu Orphelin, spokesperson for Yannick Jadotto franceinfo
“The President of the Republic has said ‘yes’ to all the hunters’ demands”, notes the elected ex-LREM. “Emmanuel Macron is a man under the influence of lobbies, particularly the hunting lobby”, also estimates on BFMTV Yannick Jadot. The Head of State, originally from the Somme, has in any case implemented a strategy to seduce the rural world and move away from the image of “president of the cities”, relying on the world of hunt. “Overall, Emmanuel Macron has done things that no President of the Republic has done for hunting so far”, moreover welcomed Willy Schraen on Sud Radio.
When the State Council cancels several bird hunting authorizations (thrushes, blackbirds, lapwing …) issued by the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the FNC is working with the government to draft new decrees. The latter were also suspended at the end of October, but the episode allowed Emmanuel Macron to show that he was fighting for the hunters. “The hunting lobby has been heard by successive governments for years”, worried about franceinfo Muriel Arnal, president of One Voice, an association that fights for the protection of animals.
“It’s worrying to see that a lobby has such power in France, again.”
Muriel Arnal, president of the One Voice associationon franceinfo
“During the confinement, the hunters were the only ones to go out, the children could not”, illustrates the founder of One Voice. Hunts were in fact authorized during confinement, to “to avoid an increase in the damage done to crops, forests and property by a proliferation of large game populations”. “I can tell you that the president is not there to give gifts. He listens to hunters, like fishermen, like footballers … And when measures improve practice, safety, and well he listen”, replies Senator LREM François Patriat, friend of Thierry Coste to whom he introduced Emmanuel Macron.
Still, the favorable arbitrations obtained by hunters during the pandemic are, with the fall in the price of the national hunting license, one of the pride of lobbyist Thierry Coste. “Emmanuel Macron initiated fundamental reforms during the five-year term and brought a lot of proof of love to the hunters.”