2024-04-22 16:10:00
In government, we are convinced: the pressure on the government by farmers and their unions, massively angry since January, will not subside until the elections of members of the Chambers of Agriculture, which must take place… in 2025 Certainly, the crisis that the agricultural world is going through goes well beyond France, as demonstrated by the demonstrations in several countries, and is deeply linked to structural challenges such as the impact of climate change on agriculture. of the war in Ukraine and inflation. Certainly, the distress and the number of demands of farmers are old, underline their unions.
However, the power issue of these elections organized every six years, and the union outbidding that accompanies it, is very sensitive. Representing farmers at the departmental, interdepartmental, regional and national level, the Chambers of Agriculture have carried out a public service mission since the post-war period: contributing to agricultural development, through the improvement of technical performance and the living conditions of farmers. , recalls François Purseigle, professor of sociology at the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse, and specialist in French agricultural unionism.
Royal access to political power
However, the intermediary body which emerges victorious from the elections of the Chambers of Agriculture will be the one which will pilot the policies. By controlling these public administrative establishments, it will therefore be able to impose its vision of agriculture, while the project and the hierarchy of priorities can differ greatly from one union to another, explains the academic.
The Chambers of Agriculture also offer royal access to political power, since their members are the State’s interlocutors at regional and departmental level on agricultural development policies. And thanks to the advisory and support services that they offer to farmers, and to which the latter are very attached, their elected officials are known and appreciated at the local level, continues François Purseigle.
“A shallot race”
“Even if there is no direct cause and effect link between the agricultural crisis and the 2025 elections, their perspective has undoubtedly boosted certain organizations” in their demonstrations, recognizes Raymond Girardi, vice-president of the Movement for the Defense of Family Operators (MODEF) – a union classified on the left which in 2019 obtained only 1.3% of the votes. Until this meeting, “the Rural Coordination (CR, minority union rather classified on the right, editor’s note) will try to keep the flame alive and the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA, majority union with Young Farmers, editor’s note) will run behind it,” estimates a ministerial source.
“This is going to be a race to the end, because the Rural Coordination will maintain the mobilization until the end,” considers François Purseigle for his part.
Questioned by La Tribune, the president of Rural Coordination, Véronique Le Floc’h, who deplores an insufficient response from the government to farmers’ grievances, asserts: ” We will never let go. We want to maintain this momentum of anger so that it becomes part of history”.
“Candidates in all departments”
Born in the South-West in the 90s, the Rural Coordination, which in 2019 obtained 21% of the votes and control of three Chambers of Agriculture (Vienne, Haute-Vienne and Lot-et-Garonne), “in fact intends to gradually anchor itself everywhere. It also presents candidates in all departments,” notes François Purseigle.
“Without radically calling into question the dominant agricultural model, it mainly represents farmers who feel downgraded and who vote against the FNSEA,” analyzes the sociologist.
“The latter, however, remains a winner almost everywhere for the moment,” observes the professor. In 2019, in a joint list with Young Farmers, she obtained 55% of the votes. The support she receives “depends neither on the size nor on the income of the farms”, specifies François Purseigle, for whom the resilience of the FNSEA, present since the post-war period, stems rather from “of its anteriority, as well as of a unionism more of service than of protest”.
Win back abstainers
Despite this domination, the FNSEA, however, finds itself increasingly faced with a challenge: reconquering its base. Its representativeness is in fact eroding as the abstentionism of farmers in professional elections increases. Between 2007 and 2019, the participation rate fell from 65% to 46% in the college of farm managers, particularly in geographic areas and sectors where agriculture is most in crisis, notes François Purseigle. “Today, the FNSEA therefore only represents 25% of farmers”, considers Raymond Girardi.
The majority union, like the others, is therefore scrutinizing the behavior of non-unionized farmers, who played an important role in the agricultural mobilization, and whom the outcome of the crisis can either rally to an intermediary body, or further demotivate from voting. .
« Demonstrations are often an opportunity to reenergize the troops and create a team. In certain departments, they have enabled, especially the majority union, to obtain membership », notes François Purseigle.
A “glass ceiling” for the left
As for the Peasant Confederation, which in 2019 totaled 19.3% of the votes, its chances of progress in 2025 are more restricted than for the Rural Coordination, according to François Purseigle, for whom “she is faced with a glass ceiling: she speaks to farmers who feel left-wing, while the left-wing population is quite limited in the agricultural world”.
“It is therefore better understood by city dwellers than by farmers, and is even declining in certain livestock areas in favor of Rural Coordination,” notes the researcher.
The Peasant Confederation, however, agrees with the Rural Coordination on the need to maintain mobilization: “The crisis is not behind us”, estimates its spokesperson, Laurence Marandola, insisting on the « sentiment d’abandon » farmers returning to their farms faced with the persistence of their difficulties. She also takes advantage of the context to emphasize the need to renew the Chambers of Agriculture:
“The crisis has demonstrated that the current chambers, supposed to represent all farmers, did not convey their discontent to the government (before the first dams, editor’s note). They therefore failed in their mission,” believes Laurence Marandola.
A very majority vote
The game of influence is further complicated by the European elections of June 9, 2024, which increase attempts to recover the agricultural movement by political parties. If the unions need it to bring their demands to Brussels, which plays an essential role in the direction of French agriculture, they also want to maintain their distance and their identity. While the National Rally is courting the farmers of the Rural Coordination by focusing on a very agrarian and “anti-system” discourse, the latter is particularly careful not to take an explicit position in its favor, notes François Purseigle.
The results of the Chamber of Agriculture elections will also largely depend on the voting method. The one currently in force, the vast majority, benefits the FNSEA too much, according to the Rural Coordination and the Peasant Confederation, who would like to introduce more proportionalism.
“That of the Chambers of Agriculture is the only professional election which is not governed by full proportional representation,” laments Laurence Marandola.
However, it seems rather unlikely that the minority unions will win their case. On the contrary, until the end of last year, the draft decree on which the Ministry of Agriculture was working provided for a reform of the method of financing intermediate bodies which would benefit even more those in the majority.
Since the start of the agricultural crisis, the decree, essential for the elections to take place, has been in the hands of the Prime Minister, according to the unions.
“In this context, it would indeed be explosive to issue a decree weakening minority unions,” warns Véronique Le Floc’h.
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