Paris (France) (AFP) – The postponement “for a few days” of government announcements to support agriculture in the face of unprecedented drought and repeated heatwaves worries unions as the situation of certain farmers is desperate.

Published on: 02/09/2026 - 18:43

“The amounts being substantial, we need a few more days of consultations between the ministries,” explained that of Agriculture on Wednesday in a message sent to the press, while the emergency plan was to be announced on Thursday.

“A few days, it can’t be a few weeks,” reacted Arnaud Rousseau, president of the FNSEA, during the union’s back-to-school press conference.

“Wheat begins to be sown on September 20-25 in France, the decision is now. The purchase of fodder” so as not to send the animals to the slaughterhouse “is now,” he added.

According to him, "the vital prognosis of agriculture has been compromised" and several surveys show that farmers are asking themselves the question of stopping or suspending their activity because they cannot buy what to sow or feed the animals as the regrowth of the meadows is so awaited.

Its ally, the Young Farmers' Union (JA), was even more impatient, affirming that the indefinite postponement of the announcements was a "particularly negative signal addressed to the agricultural world".

“The government does not seem to have understood the extent of the crisis brewing in the countryside,” added the JA in a press release.

The spokesperson for the Peasant Confederation, Stéphane Galais, warned that if the postponement resulted in a system to "accompany a social plan which does not say its name" and which would only support "the strongest" rather than an "expected ambitious plan", it would be "a scandal".

The president of Rural Coordination Bertrand Venteau told AFP that he was "not surprised" by the postponement and that the second agricultural union had "not been consulted". According to him, the government is "caught up in the budget war but farmers cannot wait".

"Distress"

All the unions have sounded the alarm about the “distress” on the farms.

The FNSEA calls for “administrative intelligence”, particularly during controls on farms. He cites the example of farmers who have not been able to sow plant cover or make their fallows flower because the soils are dry and rainfall is low, and who can be sanctioned - certain aid, particularly from Europe, being conditional on these agroecological practices.

“When you have an accident on the road, we take care of you first,” declared Arnaud Rousseau, even if, unlike the Rural Coordination, he did not call for the suspension of controls on farms. Bertrand Venteau reiterated his request to completely abolish the French Biodiversity Office, which carries out these controls to finance aid.

The FNSEA also distinguished itself from its ally, the Young Farmers, who called for a "general tax contribution", based on the model of the "drought tax" put in place in 1976, in order to support in the longer term the investments necessary to maintain activity.

Its president estimated that passing a tax would take too long and that he preferred that consumers agree to pay "a few cents" more for vegetables "with broken faces" that do not correspond to the usual sizes.

"Electroshock"

Arnaud Rousseau also opposed flat-rate aid, a measure proposed by the Confédération paysanne, the third union, saying that he preferred envelopes in the hands of prefects.

Stéphane Galais reiterated the need for direct aid of 5,000 euros per farmer, or a total of two billion, so that no farm disappears. “Not all unions defend this objective, we hear it in the meetings,” he added.

Concerning the quantification of aid, the FNSEA did not wish to come forward even if, according to Arnaud Rousseau, the total damage could exceed 10 billion.

Saying he is "lucid" about the state of public finances, he is not expecting direct aid from the government corresponding to the losses but is hoping for an "electric shock" of several billion euros to replenish the treasury and restart production for 2027.

The Rural Coordination expects compensation for all losses: “we cannot ask for less when we are a union”, declared Bertrand Venteau.

© 2026 AFP

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