PARIS: France will cut social security taxes paid by farmers, a measure worth 500 million euros (389 million pounds), to help ease financial pressure on them wrought by persistently low dairy and meat prices, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Wednesday.
The government has been trying to defuse weeks-long protests by farmers over depressed prices for their products, partly the result of a Russian embargo on European Union foodstuffs.
The tax cuts were flagged last week by President Francois Hollande in a televised interview where he pledged support for farmers, a sign of how serious the situation has become for the government in the EU’s biggest agricultural economy.
“Livestock farmers and the livestock industry in France are going through a crisis that is unprecedented in its intensity and its duration,” Valls told parliament. “The government wants to take action in relation to social charges, which is vital in view of competition farmers face from other European countries.”
The tax cuts, in addition to hundreds of millions of euros in aid granted by France to livestock farmers since last summer, would benefit all farmers and take immediate effect, Valls said.
French farmers say the loss of the Russian market has compounded their problems in the face of cheaper supplies from countries like Germany and Spain, and as the EU liberalises its farm policy through steps like abolition of milk output quotas.
France has also turned to the EU to obtain extra support for farmers, calling for renewed efforts to get a sanitary Russian ban on EU pork lifted and for alternative measures to regulate milk production following the end of quotas.
The European Commission told France at a meeting of EU agriculture ministers on Monday to work on its proposals to try and reach consensus at the next ministers gathering on March 14.
The French government has also been pushing supermarket retailers to take into account farmers’ difficulties, and Valls said a proposed 100 million euro fund for struggling pig farmers should be finalised in the coming days.
He also urged farmers and their food industry partners to undertake restructuring of the sector, and called on farmer unions to end protests.
French farmers have been blocking roads and dumping manure, straw and earth in front of public buildings and supermarkets. Protests have centred in Brittany, France’s biggest pork producing region.
