France has become a net importer of agricultural products
for the first time in almost a decade, prompting warnings that the
competitiveness of Europe’s largest farming country is deteriorating.
The trade balance for raw products, including grain, meat,
dairy and fruit and vegetables, declined for the third year in a row to reach a
narrow deficit of €300mn in 2025, according to French customs data released on
Friday.
Results were dragged down by higher prices of some imports
like cacao and coffee, as well as a weak dollar. Exports of wheat, usually a
leading category for France, also suffered from a bad harvest in 2024 which
affected the 2025 figures. Imports of agricultural products rose 9 per cent to
€19.7bn, a sixth consecutive annual increase and a new historical high.
Dorian Roucher,
senior economist at Insee, told the Financial Times that beyond the temporary
factors, which will probably improve next year, the data pointed to more
worrying structural weaknesses in the sector. “France has lost much of the
comparative advantage it once had in agriculture,” Roucher said, adding that
the reasons included farms shutting down when their owners retired, scaling
back of cattle herds and neighbouring countries improving their product
quality.
For decades, France had come to rely on agrifood being
surplus items in its foreign trade balance, acting as economic pillars on a par
with aerospace or luxury goods. But Roucher said that could no longer be taken
for granted, despite demand for food growing globally.
The trade balance was
better for the broader category of agriculture and food products, which
includes high-margin wine and spirits where France is a powerhouse. But even in
this category, France last year eked out only a small trade surplus of €200mn,
its lowest in 25 years and down €5bn year on year.
To blame were trade tensions with the US that flared when
President Donald Trump initially threatened up to 200 per cent tariffs on
French alcoholic drinks, including Champagne and cognac. In the last quarter,
wine and spirits exports roughly halved.
The data comes as
French farmers have been protesting for months over threats to their wages,
driving their tractors to Paris and pelting town halls with manure. They
warn of being squeezed between higher input prices — fuel, fertiliser, energy —
and retail prices that fail to cover their costs.
Farming unions also complain that stifling administrative
and environmental regulations are handicapping them on world markets, making it
impossible to compete with imports produced under looser standards.
Their anger has crystallised around the Mercosur trade deal
between the European Union and Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, which
the bloc clinched recently after years of wrangling. Yannick Fialip, head of
agriculture lobbying group CNPA, told the Pink ‘Un that the worsening of the
trade balance for farm products should be a wake-up call to spur the industry
and government to action. “More than merely confirming the slow decline of
France’s agricultural and agrifood trade balance, this [data] seals the country’s
downgrading among the world’s major exporting powers. It is a shock of
unprecedented scale that calls for a general mobilisation,” he said.
