Édouard Philippe is continuing to roll out his presidential project for 2027 with a new proposal aimed at the agricultural sector. During a visit to the Ain region on Wednesday for the Young Farmers' Congress, the president of Horizons announced his intention to amend the Constitution to explicitly include agriculture among the objectives protected by the Charter for the Environment.
The former Prime Minister believes that environmental imperatives and agricultural production needs must now be considered on an equal footing. According to him, the Charter for the Environment, incorporated into the Constitution in 2005, has advanced nature conservation, but now needs to be adapted to better reflect the country's economic and food realities.
A constitutional reform in favor of the agricultural sector
He therefore wishes to enshrine in the Charter the principle that agriculture constitutes an objective of general interest that must be taken into account in public decisions. This reform would require a revision of the Constitution, which he intends to initiate if he is elected President. For the mayor of Le Havre, French agriculture is currently experiencing a profound crisis comparable to that which the steel industry faced in the 1970s.
This stance comes amid recurring tensions between environmental requirements and agricultural activities. Last year, the Constitutional Council struck down a provision of the Duplomb law concerning the controlled reintroduction of certain neonicotinoids. Several agricultural organizations, including the FNSEA, are also calling for an amendment to the Charter for the Environment to replace the precautionary principle with one more focused on innovation. With less than two years until the presidential election, the issue is already emerging as one of the major themes of the upcoming campaign.
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