Jacques Serais // Photo credit: XOSE BOUZAS / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 6:06 a.m., February 2, 2024
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal unveiled the government's new announcements on Thursday to try to put an end to farmers' anger. One word came up many times: that of sovereignty. A semantic choice which is far from trivial.
More than a change of tone, it is a change of footing that the executive is making. Emmanuel Macron, champion of European sovereignty, sends his Prime Minister to proclaim a new ambition for French agriculture.
A new vocabulary for Macronie
"We want to be sovereign. Sovereign to cultivate, sovereign to harvest, sovereign to feed ourselves. We will include the objective of sovereignty in the law. We will enshrine, in the Rural Code, agriculture as a fundamental interest of the nation." Sovereignty is therefore indeed national: “Because our French agricultural exception is not a question of budget, but of pride and identity,” affirms Gabriel Attal.
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Identity and nation, words which until now seemed foreign to Macronie. But the Prime Minister wants to plow cautiously on this ground occupied by the right: “It is not a sovereignty cut off on itself, but it is an openness with rules. Reciprocity and the same requirements for all” . In other words, we need to stop letting ourselves be overtaken, even by our allies in the European Union.
A powerful minister delivers his analysis: “Our generation will perhaps experience war on our soil. Food sovereignty is essential.”