The president of the republic told agricultural unions on Thursday that he “does not believe in the end of the movement” of anger and will present his “vision” of agriculture in a few months, several union presidents said from a meeting at the Élysée.
Emmanuel Macron “told us that he did not believe in the end of the movement because the causes were protean and what he was interested in was building a project for the future and that he had no intention of running away from anger. Those are his words,” said Arnaud Rousseau, head of FNSEA, at a press conference.
The majority union has been waiting months for the president’s “vision” for the future of agriculture in France, following the worst crisis that Arnaud Rousseau has seen the agricultural world in thirty years.
“After the elections to the agricultural chambers”
The president “said he would only commit if (…) part of the agricultural world was ready to work on this consultation and this new vision of agriculture,” continued Arnaud Rousseau.
The president is prepared to “wait until after the elections to the agricultural chambers”, which are scheduled for January 2025, and believes that the competition between the unions could be “a factor of interference in the definition of the vision of the future of agriculture”, he added. head of FNSEA, the union that currently controls the vast majority of agricultural chambers.
“I felt a little bit that the goal of Rural Coordination is because we stay mobilized on the ground. He said that the mobilization has to stop somewhere so that we can get to work,” Véronique Le Floc’h, president of the second agricultural union, told the press.
She confirmed that the president considers it more appropriate to “wait until after the elections to the chambers of agriculture” with the realization of his vision, i.e. next year.
The spokesman for the Peasants’ Confederation (3rd Union), Laurence Marandola, stressed that there was a “commitment” on the part of Emmanuel Macron to “return to us and build together”. “The president perfectly understood that this meeting probably will not completely close the topic of agriculture,” she added.