Patting the backs of cows, tasting “100% French” and responding to arrests: Emmanuel Macron inaugurates the unmissable Salon de l’Agriculture on Saturday with a long stroll between the stands intended to take the pulse of rural France and the country, in full tussle over pensions.
The President of the Republic arrived at Porte de Versailles, in the south of Paris, early Saturday morning and began his visit with a meeting with fishing professionals.
After an express appearance at the 2022 edition, at the very start of the war in Ukraine, and a show canceled in 2021 due to Covid, the Head of State is reviving the presidential ritual of this major event, which is also popular with politicians than the public.
He will spend the whole day – almost thirteen hours in 2020 – in contact with professionals in livestock, crops, fishing and the agri-food industry, but also with the visitors who will flock from the first day.
After a first outing to meet the “French people who work early” on Tuesday at the Rungis market, Emmanuel Macron thus turns the page on several weeks of media diet against the backdrop of the pension battle and returns fully to the arena.
After an initial exchange with the fishing industry, he is to kick off the Salon at 8:50 a.m., which has allowed city dwellers to meet the agricultural world every year since 1964.
A year after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, which caused food prices to soar, and as a chronic drought sets in in France, Emmanuel Macron will insist on the need to “strengthen the food sovereignty” of the country and to support farmers in the face of environmental challenges, said the Elysée.
After the historic drought of the summer, France could again experience many water restrictions from March due to lack of rain since the turn of winter.
In the aisles of the show, the Head of State should set “a course” on the water savings to be made “collectively”, a crucial issue for the agricultural world, according to the Elysée.
This implies “better irrigation”, “more drought-resistant varieties” and the recycling of waste water, an area in which France lags far behind its neighbors.
He should also mention the construction of water reserves for farmers, a subject that ruffles environmentalists, according to the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau.
Emmanuel Macron, who received the professionals of the sector on Thursday and Friday, will also lay down a “framework for a new approach” on phytosanitary products, with in particular a lesser use of pesticides, and will launch a reflection on the breeding of tomorrow, integrating animal welfare.
Food prices, up 12% over the past year due to the war in Ukraine and soaring energy costs, will also be at the center of attention at Porte de Versailles.
The president of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA), Christiane Lambert, for her part, calls for fewer environmental constraints and advocates the establishment of a food voucher for the poorest in order to compensate for soaring prices.
Rite oblige, the muse of the 59th show, the cow Ovalie, of Salers breed and mahogany dress, will be entitled from the opening to the visit of the Head of State.
If Jacques Chirac, the president whose name is most associated with the Salon, boasted of knowing how to “feel the ass of cows” and saw in the salers “masterpieces”, Emmanuel Macron wants to be less lyrical on the subject. In 2018, he even castigated those who simply “pat the cows”.
His visit will nevertheless be scrutinized closely, the ritual often yielding to the unpredictable.
He could in particular be questioned on the unpopular pension reform, which gave rise to heated debates in the National Assembly and will be examined from next Tuesday in the Senate, and on the soaring prices.
In 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy, taken aback, had launched his famous “break up, poor idiot!” to a visitor who refused to shake his hand.
02/25/2023 10:10:21 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP