Macron’s snap election move plunges French farmers into uncertainty

After dominating the political agenda for months, French farmers have been blindsided by President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly, which is blocking progress on the new law for the sector, and are threatening new protests.

Macron dissolved the National Assembly on 9 June, and this “opens a period of great uncertainty for the French and in particular for farmers,” the Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d’Exploitants Agricoles (FNSEA), the largest national agricultural organisation, said in a press release on Monday.

The institutions are now on pause and the priority is political manoeuvring ahead of the two rounds of legislative elections on 30 June and 7 July.

Late payments, upcoming protests

For the farming community, there is a sense of urgency: Some of the CAP aid rewarding good environmental practices – in particular organic agriculture – was to be paid at the beginning of 2024 but is still pending.

During demonstrations over the past few months, farmers called for those subsidies to be delivered quickly. On 1 February, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal promised payments in full by 15 March.

“Three months on, nearly a quarter of the farmers involved in these environmental initiatives have still not received the payments they are due,” the FNSEA and Jeunes Agriculteurs (JA) warned in a press release on 7 June.

The unions are now giving the government an ultimatum: They will be “uncompromising on the 15 June deadline”. If the deadline is missed, they are not ruling out new protests, starting on 17 June.

At present, “more than half of the amounts” of these subsidies are missing – more than €100 million for France – due to problems in the digital system, according to the government.

Agricultural policy law

Farmers are also calling for parliamentary work to continue on the agricultural policy law, which has already been passed by the National Assembly and was due to be sent to the Senate in mid-June.

Although the Senate is not affected by the dissolution, its work is on stand by.

“Once again, there is a risk that [timing on] political decisions concerning French agriculture will not be respected,” FNSEA warned.

At a press conference on Wednesday (12 June), President Macron said he wanted the bills under examination in the Parliament “to be taken up again”.

The agricultural policy law makes food sovereignty a public policy priority, and makes agriculture a “major area of interest” for France.

It also provides for facilitating farm transfers and access to land in order to maintain the number of family farms in the country and introduces a number of administrative simplifications.

Agriculture hanging on the results of the elections

If the Senate does not approve the law after the elections, the new National Assembly will have the final say.

According to initial estimates, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) would have a relative majority, at 34%, ahead of the left-wing alliance “popular front” at 22%. According to the Toluna Harris Interactive poll for Challenges, M6 and RTL, Macron’s party would end up with 19%.

The interplay of alliances will therefore be very important for the future of agricultural issues.

On the left, Jean-Luc Mélechon, leader the “popular front” has already announced that if he wins, his group will table a “ban on pesticides and a moratorium on megabasins,” big artificial lakes to capture water and release it in case of drought.

Those projects are drawing criticism, especially in Southern France, for their environmental impact.

If RN secures a majority in Parliament, it plans to propose a moratorium on the negotiation of new free trade agreements by the EU, or the introduction of a “French agricultural exception” in the context of trade.

Farmer unions on the campaign trail

In a column published on 13 June, FNSEA chief Arnaud Rousseau pledged that the FNSEA would play its role as an “intermediary body” and representative, “whatever majorities emerge from the French vote”.

The left-leaning organisation Confédération Paysanne said it was worried about the rise of the far right “in France, as in too many EU countries”.

The union, which is close to the Front populaire, is calling on people to “join the demonstrations organised by the social forces”.

While the sector’s representatives want to make their voices heard in the elections, they refuse to have agricultural issues sacrificed by the government despite the current political upheaval.

“It’s out of the question that the fruits of our mobilisation are reduced to nothing! It’s a question of the credibility of political decisions, but above all, it’s a question of the continuation of our mobilisation,” explained Arnaud Rousseau, who called on the government to speed up its work before the elections.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Zoran Radosavljevic]

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