Europe 1 with AFP 08:37, February 26, 2022

Emmanuel Macron spoke this Saturday morning from the Salon de l'Agriculture and called on the French "to prepare" for a war "which will last".

The Head of State must make a quick visit there before his Prime Minister Jean Castex takes over after the inauguration around 9 a.m.

The war in Ukraine "will last" and "we must prepare for it", warned Emmanuel Macron this Saturday at the Agricultural Show, indicating that the government was preparing "a resilience plan" to deal with the economic consequences of this crisis.

"War has returned to Europe. This war was chosen unilaterally by President Putin (...) Certainly there will be consequences in our exports for the major sectors", such as those of wine, cereals and livestock feed, declared the Head of State to agricultural officials at the inauguration of the show in Paris.

"We are in the process of building a resilience plan, first to secure our inputs for our sectors, then to build shields in terms of costs (...) and provide long-term responses".

We must "accompany you in terms of income, and accompany our compatriots also on the impacts in terms of costs inevitably", he insisted, addressing the heads of the agricultural sectors and unions.

France ninth supplier of agri-food products to Russia

Emmanuel Macron, with drawn features, spoke for about twenty minutes in front of the leaders of professional organizations.

His visit to the Salon is cut short due to the international crisis, and Prime Minister Jean Castex must take over in the aisles of the Salon after the inauguration around 9 a.m.

Food professionals fear Russian retaliatory measures in response to Western sanctions, which would disrupt trade.

France is Russia's ninth largest supplier of agri-food products, worth 780 million euros a year, according to the French agro-industry association Ania.

Several large groups are established in Ukraine, particularly in the dairy, cereals and seeds sectors.

Lactalis (a French group present in particular in the dairy industry), which has a stand at the show, has three production sites in the former socialist republic.