Following President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the Paris agricultural fair on Saturday, Rally National leader Jordan Bardella decided to show his support for farmers with a two-day visit starting on Sunday, RFI reports.
Although French presidents have often been mocked at the annual show, Saturday’s scenes were a first. It was a long day for Emmanuel Macron, who was booed by angry farmers who scuffled with police after his 8 a.m. arrival. Six people were arrested as a result of the clashes with police.
Farmer leaders have already warned Macron that his visit to the Agricultural Salon, which is on the presidential calendar, will not go smoothly if the government fails to honour their promises to meet their demands.
Macron held a two-hour meeting with leaders of the three main farmers’ unions – FNSEA, Jeunes Agriculteurs and Coordination Rurale – over their problems with prices, bureaucracy and state aid.
It was a step down from a major national debate he had originally planned to hold, but he scrapped it after arguments over who could be invited. Macron said:
“I always prefer dialogue to confrontation. I am telling you that work is being done on the ground, we are in the process of simplifying things.”
Macron emphasised that his government had made 62 commitments to meet farmers’ demands, including promises to set minimum prices for some agricultural commodities. Protesting farmers were not all impressed. Farmer Eric Labarre, an FNSEA member, told French news agency AFP:
“Did you hear him? He doesn’t let us speak, he talks down to us. We want him to go.”
FNSEA leader Arnaud Rousseau was more conciliatory. He told LCI television:
“There are a certain number of advances that we are happy about.”
Later, Macron promised that he would meet with farmers again in three weeks, after the fair closes on 3 March.
On Sunday, it was the turn of Jordan Bardella, who, accompanied by twenty deputies, began to encourage visitors to the fair. The young head of the Rassemblement Nationale party said he was going to outdo the president by spending two days at the fair to show his dedication to the ailing industry. Instead of scuffles, visitors queued up to take selfies with the young politician who will succeed Marine Le Pen in 2022. He told reporters:
“Behind the distress of the agricultural sector, there is the distress of rural France, the distress of working France, which today is asphyxiated by standards, asphyxiated by taxes, and which is no longer able to live with dignity.”
Bardella in particular called for “economic patriotism” for agriculture and an “end to inheritance taxes” for farmers. He insisted:
“Obviously, there is the question of income and work. But our farmers must be competitive. However, by being put in competition with products or sectors that do not respect any of the standards, it is very complicated.”
He emphasised that the farmers’ protests in recent weeks have not only involved supporters of the “National Unification” and accused Macron of paranoia over “some form of conspiracy”.
Accused by Macron of being the bearer of a “stupid project” of “leaving Europe”, Bardella claims he wants to “change the rules of the EU” by “pushing it from within”. But “as long as we recognise that the rules made in Brussels apply on French soil, it creates a problem,” he says.
The latest polls show that the RN, led by Bardella, will be the big winner in the European elections on 9 June with about a third of the French vote, about 10 points ahead of the coalition led by Macron’s Renaissance party.
