“Agriculture cannot be the adjustment variable of trade agreements”
The draft EU-Australia agreement is a deadly threat to French livestock farming.
In the framework of negotiations on the future free trade agreement between the European Union and Australia, the voice of the French agricultural world is rising strongly to warn of the risks weighing on its sectors. Max Bauer, a union figure and former president of the Coordination Rurale du Var, expresses his opposition to the inclusion of an agricultural chapter in this treaty, considering that it jeopardizes the survival of livestock farmers and the country's food sovereignty. SACRIFICED LIVESTOCK FARMING For the union representative, the interests of French farmers would be relegated to the background to facilitate broader trade agreements benefiting other sectors of the economy.
“Once again, our livestock farmers are serving as bargaining chips in negotiations that flout their work and weaken our rural areas. I denounce a vision where agriculture would be sacrificed for the benefit of an industrial policy deemed disconnected from reality, without consideration for the balance of the countryside and the sustainability of farms.”
At the heart of this opposition is the question of production standards. The agreement, as envisioned, would open the European market to massive imports of Australian meat, produced under regulatory and environmental conditions that are far less stringent than those imposed on livestock farmers in the European Union. “Behind these agreements presented as strategic lies a brutal reality: the opening of the European market to meat produced according to standards far lower than ours.
This regulatory asymmetry would create an unsustainable distortion of competition for French sectors that are subject to specifications among the strictest in the world regarding animal welfare and environmental respect. It is unfair competition that dooms our livestock farms to disappear,” he warns.
STRATEGIC STAKE Beyond the economic aspect, Max Bauer refuses to reduce the debate to a simple commercial negotiation. He places agriculture back at the center of a much broader issue: that of the strategic autonomy and health security of France. “I refuse to allow French agriculture to become the adjustment variable of an industrial policy disconnected from reality,” insists the former president of the Coordination Rurale du Var.
He recalls the mission of agriculture, which goes far beyond production: “Producing healthy, traceable, and local food is a strategic stake for our country, not a detail in a trade treaty.”
Faced with what he describes as an imminent danger for the French agricultural model, his message to public authorities calls for a firm stance from France to block this agreement as it stands and protect its livestock farming sectors, which guarantee quality food and the vitality of rural areas. “I demand that France oppose this agreement and finally defend food sovereignty, consumer health, and the survival of our livestock farming sectors,” he concludes.