The L’Alouette marching band from Pithiviers (Loiret) lines up to welcome Emmanuel Macron. “Make a little hit now, launch a man. Afterwards, it will be Marc Fesneau, and he will play the pipe for us. It would be enough if he gave us 100 billion though. » Farmers have always liked to tickle their ministers of agriculture, it’s part of the job. A hundred meters further, the presidential convoy arrives in the middle of flat fields dotted with wind turbines in the Beauce. For his first trip to France since the start of the school year, Friday, September 9, the Head of State went for a second consecutive year to the meeting of Young Farmers, gathered at Terres de Jim, in Outarville (Loiret).
And the trumpets and drums of Pithiviers will have to wait a little longer. Cheese tasting, discussions on the price of milk, on the damage caused by starlings, the President of the Republic takes the time. “Agriculture is at the confluence of all the crises we are experiencing”, he says a little later in a tent. For several months, farmers have suffered the consequences of the war in Ukraine (increase in the price of fertilizers and energy, among others) and have endured a historic drought, “an episode that we had not known for decades”underlines Mr. Macron.
The Head of State promises that the 600 million euros of crop insurance – promised here in 2021 – will soon be available, and announces the creation of a fund to promote transmissions between generations, before denouncing the ‘« agri-bashing » by implicitly targeting certain ecologists. “All those who are leading a catastrophic discourse on our agriculture, what are they up to? A France where we will have to import our products which will come from abroad with health and ecological standards much lower than ours”he believes, in a black suit and tie.
Five-year period hampered
Because the news has once again hit the Elysian agenda, torn between international and French affairs. Friday morning, the day after the launch of his National Council for Refoundation (CNR) in Marcoussis (Essonne), the President of the Republic went to the British Embassy to lay a white rose in front of a portrait of Queen Elisabeth II , who died Thursday at the end of the day. “His death leaves us with a sense of emptiness. For you she was your queen, for us she was the queen”, he had said shortly before in an English video posted on Twitter. In the next two weeks, the head of state will attend the sovereign’s funeral before attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Before other trips. Despite this, his entourage ensures that he will also continue to carry the CNR in the territories, by participating in local variations this fall.
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