In a context of “ecological backlash” which is agitating part of the political class, the Lépine competition for the bad idea for the planet and its inhabitants is in full swing. Édouard Philippe, candidate for the presidential election, decided to keep it simple: copy and paste an idea from the FNSEA and declare that it is necessary to “complete the Environmental Charter (…) by indicating that agriculture is a legitimate objective that must be taken into account”.
During its last congress, the FNSEA said it again: we must initiate a revision procedure to rewrite the Environmental Charter that Jacques Chirac managed to include in our Constitution in 2005.
For what ? So that agriculture is distinguished from the environment, so that agricultural policy is separated from environmental policy, so that the precautionary principle is abolished. With the hope that the regulation of pesticides, fertilizers or water retention will be freed from environmental or health requirements. What do you think?
A useless project
Firstly, opening a project to revise the Charter would be useless. For three reasons.
Rewriting the Environmental Charter will not help farmers to reduce their debt, to fight against unfair competition from certain imported products, to cope with the increase in the cost of hydrocarbons or to complete files relating to the common agricultural policy (CAP).
Furthermore, it goes without saying that hedges, fields, ponds, water tables or landscapes are obviously elements of the environment.
Finally, the interest attached to the protection of the environment does not prohibit but, conversely, obliges the protection of the other “fundamental interests of the nation”. This is what the Charter already specifies: “The preservation of the environment must be sought in the same way as the other fundamental interests of the nation. » Among these other “fundamental interests of the nation”: agriculture, as confirmed by article 1 of the agriculture law of March 24, 2025.
Secondly, such a revision would be dangerous. There is no doubt that many parliamentarians would take the opportunity to table amendments to cover up the rest of the text. Opening Pandora’s box means putting at risk the very existence of the Charter, the historical result of a fragile consensus.
Linking agriculture and environment
Third, by clearly separating, in our Constitution, agriculture from the environment, an additional argument will be used by those who want to “protect” the Ministry of Agriculture from the Ministry of Ecology. The second, already very weakened, will have even more difficulty protesting when the first wants, once again, to erase wetlands, shoot at protected species or keep the environmental police away from farms.
Quattro: weakening the Environmental Charter by rewriting it also aims to distance… the Constitutional Council. The latter in fact used Article 1 of this Charter to censor, on August 7, 2025, the famous “Duplomb law” which attempted to once again authorize the use of certain neonicotinoids.
Those who campaign to separate – or even oppose – agriculture from the environment cherish the hope that the Environmental Charter could no longer be opposed to laws relating to agriculture when the latter pass before the Constitutional Council.
In conclusion, our farmers who feed us and whose children we are all certainly need to be respected, supported, helped, financed. Their activity, fundamental, in the literal sense, is a condition for the protection of the environment and public health.
They don’t need polemics and symbols. Édouard Philippe, you are lucky to be able to count on the support of one of the “mothers” of the Environmental Charter: Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet. An excellent specialist in ecological transition. Take your chance and listen to it!
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