As Putin’s war pushes the UN’s food price index to a record high, the Élysée is seizing on the moment to derail the EU’s “farm to fork strategy”, a set of measures that spell the end of the old Common Agricultural Policy and its mega-subsidies for French agro conglomerates.
The reforms pushed by German and Nordic greens aim to halve the use of pesticides and raise the organic share of produce to 25pc by 2030. It pushes an ethos of sustainable farming with less use of animal feed.
President Macron has other plans. “It was based on a world before the war in Ukraine, and would cut production by 13pc. These objectives must be reviewed. In no circumstances can Europe contemplate producing less,” he said.
That loss of 13pc is disputed. It skips over the science showing that status quo industrial farming erodes the soil and is untenable. But ecological objections are being swept away by the new refrain of European agricultural sovereignty.
“Since Russia is using food security as a weapon, we must counter it with a food shield. A paradigm shift is needed in the way Brussels thinks about agriculture,” said the powerful French farmers lobby FNSEA.
Brussels is bending to pressure from the agrichemical multinationals. It has delayed the revised directive on sustainable use of pesticides, and another on ecosystems.
It is a parallel story on the energy front. The worst gas crisis in living memory has finally ended the era when Germany could export its anti-nuclear ideology through EU regulations. Berlin has been unable to stop France labelling nuclear power a form of clean energy under Europe’s €1 trillion Green Deal. This unlocks large investment flows.
Putin has rehabilitated France’s nuclear industry, which still provides 70pc of its electricity. The network was in trouble earlier this winter when a fifth of its 56 reactors were shut for safety reasons, and France had to fire up two old coal plants to avoid blackouts.
It is still in trouble, of course. The first Hinkley-style reactor at Flamanville has been delayed again until 2023, 12 years late and four times over budget.
State-owned EDF expects a €26bn hit this year, partly because it is being forced to provide energy below market prices to help Mr Macron’s re-election. It will need a state bailout, so this consumer subsidy is disguised taxation.
Nevertheless, France’s nuclear power has proved to be a strategic buffer at a time of crisis, valued as Europe tries to slash dependence on Russian hydrocarbons.
It is Germany that is struggling to explain why it closed three well-functioning reactors in January, and why it plans to close the last three later this year, yet still insists that a gas embargo against Russia is too traumatic to contemplate.
