“What we want is for these announcements to translate into action”: the boss of the FNSEA reacts to the new measures for agriculture

Le président de la FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau. Midi Libre – SYLVIE CAMBON

Three months after the blockades and while fourteen new measures were announced on Saturday by the government, is the crisis over in the farming world ? Arnaud Rousseau, the boss of the FNSEA, the first French agricultural union, privileged interlocutor of the executive during these long weeks of negotiations, answers us.

How do you welcome these new announcements, Saturday, from the government, aimed at the agricultural world ?

We said that there would be three stages: mobilization on the ground, work and implementation. We consider that these announcements close the working time.

We wanted to complete this process and that is what we did with the government. Our satisfaction is not blissful, we have not obtained everything we wanted, everything is not settled, but our demands have been the subject of listening and there are a number of advances.

Now what we want is for these announcements to be translated into action. We will make sure of it. The study of the bill will begin (on food sovereignty and generational renewal, Editor's note). The law must transform the test. Other measures are regulatory.

Farmers are first and foremost pragmatists, what matters to us is that they can see things take shape on their farms. The government has four to five months to put all this in place. Then we'll do the accounts.

What do you think of the reservations of environmental NGOs which point out, through the measures taken for the peasant world at the national and European level, setbacks on the environmental level ?

We may not share a certain number of points of view, I respect their commitment, but the loss of production capacity of French agriculture results in the systematic importation of products less environmentally friendly. Not having their support, at a time when we have the ambition of French sovereignty, there is a form of paradox.

Will these new announcements put an end to the crisis??

We cannot resolve thirty years of errors in six months, but many subjects which had not been opened up in recent years have been, many have also moved forward in European level.

We have a balanced position, between those who think that everything is settled and those who think that nothing has changed because they are in positions of systematic opposition or of die-hard demands.

You are referring to the Rural Coordination, they believe that "the account is still not there".

Yes, but I am not commenting on their statements, I am simply saying that between the NGOs who say that everything has been given to the agricultural world and those who say that nothing is changing, we have done the FNSEA, like the Young Farmers, this responsible union work.

It’s the end of the mobilization at the FNSEA ?

No, the majority of farmers will now return to work in the fields, but it is entirely possible that things will resume if they consider that the promises have not been kept. We will be very vigilant.

What lessons do you draw from this long mobilization of the peasant world ?

Expectations are very high and the agricultural world has no intention of letting itself disappear. The subjects he highlighted on overadministration and simplification ultimately go further than agriculture.

I have received a lot of testimonies from other economic sectors saying: "You lit the fuse but what you did will be useful to us all."

The farmers of the FNSEA will always be lookouts and each time, for administrative, normative, regulatory reasons, we want to restrict them in their entrepreneurial taste, there will be strong reactions . Because feeding our compatriots remains a noble mission and food sovereignty deserves to be defended.

To think that there will be no more agricultural actions in the coming years is to be mistaken.

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