Le Maire Offers Favourable Loan Terms In Effort To Quell Farmer Protests

BFMTV reportingthat Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire has announced a new series of measures that includes banks offering preferential rates on loans to farmers. The recent mass protests by farmers across the EU have had an outsized impact, nowhere moreso than in France where the sector holds significant cultural and political cache. The current Agricultural Show in Paris is one of the most prominent political events of the year, with President Emmanuel Macron spending 13 hours speaking to farmers and sector representatives there over the weekend.

• The three measures are: a one-year deferrment for farmers on paying back loans, and then a rescheduling of the debt for up to 36 months; a loan at a rate of 0-2.5% depending on the farm's financial situation; and finally the EUR2bn package of loansintended to support new farmers setting up will be avaliable from 1 May rather than July as first announced.
• Given the plethora of regulations around state support and farming as part of EU rules on state aid, the Common Agricultural Policy, and the Single Market, it remains to be seen whether the measures will come in for challenge by France's EU partners also dealing with farmers protests.
• With the European Parliament elections approaching on 9 June, and Macron's centrist Renaissance facing the prospect of coming in third behind the far-right National Rally and the left-wing NUPES alliance, the gov't faces a race against time to enact measures to end the headline-grabbing actions of the protesting farmers.