The ecologist is a long-time slayer of productivist agriculture - like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who preferred to organize an agricultural visit last Saturday during his trip to Reunion, and send representatives to Porte de Versailles.

But Yannick Jadot was rather spared from the scandals in a show where the stands of the FNSEA and the interprofession of breeders, which he visited, dominate in size.

He was nevertheless slapped by a hunter, elegantly dressed but displeased: "You want to suppress the hunt!"

"No, only on weekends and during holidays," retorted the candidate.

"You know very well that if you eliminate hunting on weekends, there are no more hunters because they work," grumbled his interlocutor.

Yannick Jadot went on to more favorable ground, the stand of the Organic Agriculture agency, which awards the AB label.

Its director Laure Verdeau challenged it: what about a secretariat for organic farming?

“Shouldn't we rather have a Ministry of Agriculture that makes organic the heart of its project?”, replied Mr. Jadot.

Switching to the organic model "requires time, that's undeniable", he conceded.

"Wrung out"

During his wandering, greeting the "Neige" muse of the Abondance breed, which François Hollande also tasted a few minutes after him, Yannick Jadot thought he heard "a little music" which he disliked.

"I am worried to hear a little music here that takes us back 30 years, we should always produce more" to respond to the war in Ukraine which is disrupting agricultural markets, he thundered.

A "pretext", and even "the instrumentalization of a dramatic situation".

But for him, environmentalists have "won the cultural battle on the agricultural model, on what the French want to eat".

But, plagued the candidate, public policies are slow to follow.

“We fight them, but we lose them, because we are not numerous enough”, sighed the MEP EELV Claude Gruffat who accompanied him, and whom Mr. Jadot said “wrung out” by the negotiations on the Common Agricultural Policy.

Yannick Jadot would like to redirect it if he is elected, to direct the subsidies towards supporting all farmers towards organic farming.

Yannick Jadot environmental candidate for the presidential election visits the 48th Agricultural Show on March 3, 2022 Sameer Al-DOUMY AFP

“We cannot set aside all environmental and social constraints,” he insisted.

Rather than producing more and exporting to "feed the planet", according to Yannick Jadot, we must be content with the objective of "food sovereignty" to feed the French.

And the ecologist assumes that the prices of organic will remain high: "Organic is more expensive but you have to pay the right price, we are not going to manage the problems of purchasing power of the French by the poverty of the peasants".

Rather, he wants to lower energy bills through subsidized thermal renovations and the development of alternative modes of transport to the car.

He who has often called to wait for the last phase of the campaign to put his 5 to 6% in the polls into perspective, seemed relieved to learn that Emmanuel Macron was going to declare himself Thursday evening in a "Letter to the French".

"What is candidate Macron in agriculture? Robotics, digital, genetics. We are farmers, biodiversity, healthy food".

© 2022 AFP