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Speech by M. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic¹

Rennes, 11 September 2007

It is a great pleasure for me to join you at this 21st inauguration of SPACE [Salon de la Production Animale Carrefour Européen - International Trade Fair for Livestock], which I have already attended, in the company of Michel Barnier whose commitment to defending the interests of agriculture at the European Commission and with our European partners I would like to commend.

In accepting your invitation, I wanted to tell all our fellow citizens that France needs its farmers and its agri-food businesses. I would therefore like to thank you for the work you do every day for the good of our country’s economy, work that plays a vital role in the balance of our territories.

France should be proud of its farmers and land. The countryside, long a victim of the rural exodus, is now seeing an increase in its population. And French agriculture has effected an unprecedented revolution since the Second World War, changing more in the space of 50 years than had been achieved in centuries and working its way up to European leader and number two worldwide.

I would like to express my esteem for Jean-Michel Lemetayer, who represents you with such vigour and energy, as I personally know, and my esteem for the FNSEA (French National Federation of Farmers’ Unions), which works to defend the position of French agriculture in Europe. France needs unions that build for the future. I would like to thank him for his invitation, which gives me the opportunity to talk about the place of agriculture in our country and how I intend to champion a new ambition for this sector, which I see as strategic.

I am most pleased to be doing so in Brittany, a region where agriculture has always played a key role upheld by its population’s determination and qualities of courage, hard work and forward thinking. Pierre Mehaignerie, long Minister of Agriculture, will agree with me on this.

Ladies and gentlemen, I will speak frankly.

Our dialogue with the agricultural world has long consisted of a string of vain promises based on Community agricultural trade talks wherein we refused to face up to reality even though we knew what the outcome would be : some sectors have done well out of the Common Agricultural Policy while others find themselves, Mr President, in dire straits.

It is because I respect you and because we share the same values that I have no other choice today than to speak to you truthfully, which is how I intend to speak to all the French people throughout my five-year term.

The truth is that our European agriculture is faced with ever-increasing problems :

First of all, the weather extremes on the rise in Europe and worldwide. I am referring, in particular, to the farmers of Martinique and Guadeloupe who saw their hard work devastated by Hurricane Dean on 17 August.

I am also referring to the health crises, about which Michel Barnier was talking to me again in the plane on the way here - foot-and-mouth disease, avian influenza and Bluetongue - which deeply disrupt the European markets and cause mounting losses and a crisis in consumer confidence.

Then there is the fact that agricultural prices in Europe are spinning out of control. Who could have imagined last year that milk powder prices would rise 70%? Or that wheat prices would increase more than 50%? Such fluctuations cannot be found in any other economic sector. They create considerable problems for veal calf farmers, pig farmers and poultry farmers and growing income inequalities among farmers today.

These inequalities are also found among your elders. And here too, I would like to speak truthfully. Average agricultural pensions are less than €400 per month. And it’s not because farmers, or at least retirees, demonstrate less that this injustice is more acceptable. Who could say that this is a fair and fitting situation for such a hard job? And I’m also referring to the widows. Yes, the truth is that there are special pension schemes for jobs that are not necessarily strenuous and strenuous jobs that do not have special pension schemes.

That is the truth.

I am going to change this situation because it is shameful. Raising small pensions and maintaining the purchasing power of retired farmers will be a focal point of the second stage of the pensions reform in 2008. I will say what I think of special schemes on the 18th of this month. A little savoir-faire does nothing to undermine the solution to a problem.

Last but not least, agriculture is also having to deal with an increasing scarcity of agricultural land. In France, we lose 60,000 hectares of arable land every year. Is this acceptable when we know that the planet is counting on France to produce more ? Because that’s precisely where we stand ! France must produce more.

Let’s face it : we are already drawing largely on our planet’s capacities and yet 800 million people are starving. By 2050, the earth will have three billion more human beings. Climate change is accelerating and the water issue is becoming more nagging every day. With the depletion of fossil fuels, the post-oil period has already started. This will be one of the major problems of the century. And so it happens that agriculture in Europe is at the heart of the challenges of the 21st century.

Agriculture is not a pastoral picture of times gone by, agriculture is not merely a tradition. Agriculture is not the past, agriculture is at the heart of the challenges facing the planet in this century : the food challenge, the environmental challenge and the energy challenge. Here are three challenges for which agriculture is key, three reasons to have faith in the future of agriculture.

My belief is that France is in one of the best positions worldwide to take up these challenges. So what do we need? What we need is a new ambition for agriculture in France and Europe.

I want to build world-class agriculture in France and Europe.

For independence and food security : Europeans cannot rely on foreign countries for their supplies, especially when these countries are at risk of health crises and weather extremes over which we have no control.

Secondly, for economic reasons : because with €39.3 billion in exports, 1.6 million jobs and a balance of trade that will top €9 billion this year, we are hardly going to abandon an economic sector - since agriculture is an economic sector - that creates a trade surplus for us while we have so many other sectors that post trade deficits. What an idea to turn our backs on a sector that gives us exports !
Our country’s agriculture, fisheries and food industry are essential pillars of our economy, sectors that create wealth. They constitute a vital asset for our economic growth.

Thirdly, for reasons of regional balance. Our agriculture is the basis of the balance and buoyancy of the rural world. A rural world that no longer produces - I say it as I see it and think it - would be a condemned world. Tourism is tremendous. But there cannot be tourism in regions where there is no longer any production or economic activity. It’s not a question of tourism or production. It’s a question of production and tourism. Without production, there is nothing.

Last but not least, for environmental reasons : the urgency of combating climate change is such that we have to move forward quickly in the use of renewable energy sources. Our agriculture can contribute to this in three ways.
First, biofuels.
Second, the use of biomass.
Third, green chemistry: hemp paper, plastic made from potato starch, sunflower solvents, etc. Our country has all the assets to excel in these disciplines, which call for a combination of agricultural strength, industrial strength and scientific strength.

To achieve this, my view - which hasn’t changed since the election campaign, as some of my friends could tell you - is that our farmers should be able to make a living from the prices paid for their produce rather than the subsidies they are granted.

During the election campaign, the dictates of the established order kept telling me that farmers would never be able to make a living from their prices, from the fruit of their work. Today, I tell my friends that the facts have proved me right. I don’t like the notion of decoupling, which means the less you produce the more you receive in subsidies. It’s not my idea of French agriculture and a farmer’s work. Because a farmer is a producer who wants to be paid for his know-how, who doesn’t want to live merely on handouts.

For the first time in 40 years, world prices are higher than European prices in many areas of production. They called me a demagogue when I said that the Community preference should enable us to guarantee decent prices to producers. But what political will refused yesterday, the markets are imposing today. So the price issue is key to solving the agricultural problem. Some recommended waiting. Waiting ! That’s the strategy they’ve been proposing to our country for decades.
Wait for the next election, wait for the next event, wait for the next President.
Waiting only leaves us further behind.
But we had to wait.
Wait for the conclusions of the CAP’s "health check" in 2008.
Wait for the CAP budget negotiations in 2009.
Wait for the talks on the future of the CAP in 2013.

I ask this question, why should we wait for these meetings to lay down the principles of a new CAP ?
I take it upon myself to say that I want a break, a break with Malthusianism, a break with conservatism, a break with the status quo, a break with the wait-and-see attitude.
Who here would dare stand up and tell me that it will be easier to negotiate next year ? It will be easier to negotiate in two years’ time ? It will be easier to negotiate in three years’ time ?
My strategy is not to wait to pass the buck to others. _ My strategy is to do what the French people have asked me to do : solve the problems to put French society in a position of modernity in the world today.

The CAP has been a tremendous tool for modernization.
Yet aid payments now represent nearly half of a farmer’s income, sometimes more. The pernickety regulations, a mix of French and Community legislation, and the many inspections have turned working the land into a daily tussle with red tape. And so the walls close in. We don’t want to give you prices, don’t worry, sleep easy good people, we will give you subsidies. Once we’ve given you subsidies, we tell you it costs too much so we introduce inspections. To underpin the inspections, we create red tape. And so it goes that you are no longer a farmer, but a slave to paperwork. What’s more, you apologize for doing a job that’s needed. I don’t want this direction.

I want a new CAP, because I have no intention of disappointing the farmers who do not want handouts, farmers who don’t want to live off subsidies, farmers who don’t want to be inspected for the length of their livestock’s hair ! If we’re looking to create jobs, I have ideas, but not in this area. Not in the length of an animal’s hair. And I tell you, here again, it was, "But you understand, Nicolas, you can’t talk about that because it’s taboo." Oh really? Well, we’re going to talk about it.

The CAP as it stands today cannot meet the challenges of post-2013. Everyone knows it, but nobody says it. Sleep easy, 2013 is a long way off. But what are we going to do when 2013 gets here ? What will your children do ? What will you yourself do ? And it’s not a technical discussion for the CAP’s health check about the famous "single payment entitlements", "decoupling" and "modulation" of aid that will do anything to meet these goals. The Common Agricultural Policy has been so peppered with incomprehensible terms that no one puts forward ambitions any more. Without meaning to reject the past, the reform of the CAP is vital to give this policy back its legitimacy.

Therefore, when France takes over the presidency of the European Union, I would like to prepare a new policy framework for our agriculture in Europe, based on fundamental principles.

The Common Agricultural Policy should meet four objectives :
  to ensure Europe’s food safety and independence. A vital strategic goal and there is no reason for us to apologize for wanting to feed Europeans in an independent and safe manner.
  to contribute to the global food balances.
  to preserve the balances in our rural regions.
  to help combat climate change and improve the environment. These are the fundamental principles.

The CAP, I assume my responsibilities, must be established on the basis of an indisputable principle of Community preference covering new objectives, tools and an ambitious budget to meet these objectives. Let there be no mistake, I will take a hard line on this issue during the coming discussions on the Community budget. The Community preference is not a rude word. Besides, if we don’t prefer Europe, why did we build Europe ? And I would add that with the simplified treaty, I have done enough to help move things forward to not have to apologize for defending the food independence of this same Europe.

First of all, I’ll say it again, our farmers should be able to make a living from the prices they are paid for their produce, their production and their work by means of a real EU market stabilization policy.

Our environment is changing. We need to give the company heads you are the means to protect yourselves against the disastrous consequences of climate and health risks. To do this, I am asking the European Commission to immediately set up a proficient risk and hazard management system.
At the same time, I have asked Michel Barnier to work with Christine Lagarde to define, by the end of the year, the conditions for making the risk management mechanisms available to all our farms on the basis of the crop insurance experiment. In the same spirit, I would like a health intervention fund to be set up to address, for example, our concerns with Bluetongue.

Making a living from prices and production is also about being better organized. I would like to improve the commercial organization of the supply, especially in the ovine sector and in the fruit, vegetable and wine sector, and ensure the development of the inter-branch organizations. I would like to strengthen the food industry fabric by enabling you to become shareholders by means of funds. To do this, I am asking Michel Barnier to take the initiative of drafting a memorandum that we will send to the European Commission by the end of the year to adjust to and amend competition law in a spirit of responsibility from the trade organizations and in the interests of the consumers.

Making a living from prices also means that everyone should play the competition game. Today, we are being told that certain consumer food prices are going up when producer prices have been on the downturn for over ten years. Is it acceptable that agricultural prices should have halved in nearly 40 years while our food prices have only fallen 14% ? The profit must have gone somewhere ! The answer is that it is not acceptable and the State will do something about it.

This is why, as part of the reform of the Galland Act that I asked the government to undertake, a special track will be reserved for agricultural produce so that farmers can benefit from fair remuneration. There is no contradiction between a decent price for products and an across-the-board decrease in leading brand products. You said that being a farmer is not the same thing as being Procter and Gamble. That was spot on, because it’s true.

I would also like the CAP to contribute to stepping up innovation and R&D in the agri-food sector.

Secondly, we need to support agriculture that contributes to the sustainable development of our country and ensures the food safety of our products with a real food policy.
When it comes to food, the French are increasingly demanding in terms of nutritional quality and food safety. We will take a Community initiative to step up controls at European Union borders to ensure that imported agricultural and food products are up to those produced in Europe.
Personally, I don’t understand that. We can’t impose rules on our producers and then bring products into Europe from countries where there is no traceability or minimum compliance with food rules. Competition should be the same for everyone.
If our producers and stockbreeders have to respect regulations to ensure food safety, I would ask that the imports into Europe be subject to the same rules.
If they are not up to the same standard, they are not accepted on the European market.

The quality of the environment is a daily concern for farmers.
With the Grenelle de l’Environnement², I would like to get to the heart of the debates with no holds barred. There are many projects in this area giving us just as many means to take action before the end of the year and confirm the movement towards sustainable agriculture started by the farmers themselves.

It is vital to define a new plan for reducing the use of fertilizers and pesticides to protect the health of their users. On this subject, I would like to say to the international community that farmers are the primary victims of this and not the primary culprits.

I would also like to launch a real biomass development plan to help farms move towards greater energy independence.

Last but not least, public research into biotechnologies is an essential factor in the development of our agriculture. In pharmaceuticals, for example, one in six drugs is created by genetic engineering and 60% of new drugs draw on biotechnologies. Research should be stepped up in the areas of food, green chemistry and biotechnologies.

France will fight in Europe for a real territorial cohesion policy to be implemented :
I would like to step up the support provided for territorial development and launch a reform of subsidies for grass-based production.
I want to strengthen the production areas under threat and the natural handicap areas with a real territorial development approach.

We need to continue with the policy to help agricultural businesses start up since they are quite definitely businesses. They may be agricultural, but they are first and foremost businesses, trained by the excellent agricultural education system and set up by young people who should be backed with gusto, Mr President. Because what would be the point of saying that agriculture has a future if young people can’t set up in business ?
We need young farmers to set up en masse, every year, to guarantee the future of our agriculture. And let me say here that the fact that half of all retiring farmers are not replaced is incompatible with a global demand for agricultural produce that is set to grow and that France should be in a position to meet.

This policy framework will serve as a basis for further discussions on the future of the CAP. The general review of public policies will enable us to modernize our structures and improve services to farmers as of 2008.

France will therefore quickly take the initiative on the international scene to promote this new framework. We have everything we need : France has won back its place in Europe.
The simplified treaty on which we agreed on 23 June bears witness to the resurgence of the European spirit, the resurgence of a common European will, a will stronger than national self-interest, stronger than national sentiments. This will is obviously needed to embark upon a real discussion on the future of the CAP.

Dear friends, I don’t give in. I will not accept that Europe should be bureaucratic and technocratic.
I want it to have political responsibility.
I want us, the political leaders, to stop hiding behind bureaucracy in an apology for what was our cowardice. Because if the Commission has done things you’ve been unhappy about, it’s because, at some point, political leaders accepted it. There’s no use in pointing the finger when you’re incapable of taking responsibility for your own actions. If there are problems, I will take responsibility for them.
I want the Commission to stop being made the scapegoat. _ I want to take strong initiatives to rebuild an agricultural policy, taking responsibility for the sometimes-difficult choices that will have to be made.
I would like France to launch, right from the start of the French presidency of the European Union - this is in the second half of 2008 - a discussion on the founding principles of the 2013 Common Agricultural Policy as part of a major exploratory debate on the future of the Community policies and their funding.
This work, Michel, will need to be prepared in agricultural meetings with the professional agricultural organizations.

Secondly, the WTO negotiations should start up again on sound bases with clarified objectives. I will firmly oppose any agreement that does not serve the interests of our country, because that is what I was elected to do.
I will say it clearly : if Europe fails to defend its agricultural production, its food supply, if Europe fails to protect the quality of health and the environment when all the other regions in the world are defending and protecting theirs, if Europe fails to take action and merely stands by as the United States House of Representatives votes to uphold the current subsidy mechanisms, then what’s the point in constructing an agricultural policy ?
I will not be the man who gives up.

Let’s be clear.
I believe in globalization.
I believe in competition.
I believe in the free-market economy.
But I ask for reciprocity and an end to naivety.
The state of the talks should lead us to discuss their future in detail at European Union level, but no doubt also at the WTO, since it is hard to carry on as if nothing were wrong. We are edging further away from our initial goals in this round. I won’t talk in circles, I’ll be straight and to the point. The emerging countries deem they have all the rights and no duty in the multilateral trade system. Yet the round’s success is dependent primarily on them.

After seven years of negotiations, maybe it’s time to think about how best to break out of the current logic to be able to reintroduce important subjects for the European Union such as the rules on trade protection, investment and the lifting of non-tariff barriers.
I say it clearly : in these international negotiations, France demands reciprocity, France demands balance, France demands the Community preference.
I have said this to a man for whom I have affection and admiration, José Manuel Barroso.
I have said it to some of our leading partners : India, Brazil, China and Argentina. Europe will no longer be naive. I say what I think. Great nations are emerging and they want the rights of great nations, but they have to accept the duties of great nations. You can’t have the rights without the duties.

I believe we cannot keep inflicting environmental dumping, social dumping, fiscal dumping and now currency dumping on our agricultural businesses.

Dear friends, as you can see, I want to work with you to promote a new ambition for agriculture in Europe. I want world-class production agriculture where each farmer can earn a decent living from his work.
I would just like to say that I am indeed from the city and have made my entire political career there.
But it’s not because you live in the city that you can’t understand the agricultural world. Because your values are values rooted deep in French society : work, perseverance, courage, freedom, pragmatism, the need to build and the need to pass on. I share these values one hundred percent.

You know I am determined to respect the commitments I make.
I know that by combining your energy, talents and imagination, agricultural France can look to the future with confidence.
France has a visceral bond with its agriculture, with its soil. The word "soil" has a specifically French significance and I was elected to defend the French national identity. And within this French national identity there is the relationship the French have with the soil, with their forefathers, with their grandparents. All the families of France have grandparents who worked the land at some time or another. Agriculture has shaped our landscapes.
Agriculture has given our country part of its soul. It is with these fundamental beliefs in mind that we will work together for the future.

Believe you me, I will always say what I think.
I believe in your future.
I will defend you, but I will also ask you to put aside the shilly-shallying and habits that have undermined the modernity of French agriculture.
I will be a demanding, but fair partner.
I will not lie to you.
I will not betray you, quite simply because I have no intention of letting you down.

Thank you.

¹ Source of English text: Elysée website ² This is a conference bringing together the government, local authorities, trade unions, business and voluntary sectors to draw up a plan of action of concrete measures to tackle the environmental issue. The name “Grenelle” comes from the first conference bringing all these players together which took place in May 1968 in the Rue de Grenelle.