France becomes net importer of agriculture products

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.

Mercosur deal upsets French farmers

The EU made some last minute concessions on agriculture to get the trade pact with Mercosur signed after 26 years, but farmers are still not happy

Brussels won over waverers including Italy with extra subsidies and possible bans on some agricultural imports. The EU also agreed safeguards to temporarily suspend tariff exemptions for certain agricultural products if imports surge or prices drop. Transition periods for removing tariffs range up to 30 years.

French farmers were still strongly opposed and more than 5,000 of them and 750 tractors demonstrated in Strasbourg leading to clashes with riot police outside the European Parliament.   They also set up road blocks outside the ports of Cherbourg and Le Havre and stopped container lorries.

Beef imports into Europe will be limited to 99,000 tons a year and poultry to 180,000 tons, but European farmers complain that their Mercosur counterparts face less stringent regulations on animal welfare and pesticides.   They also complain that meat from there contains antibiotics and growth hormones,

In an article on the deal, the Spectator points out that there were 1.6 million farms in France in 1970 and today there are just 450,000, but some of us might see that as an efficiency gain.

However, the prospect of an EU trade deal with India is likely to lead to further tensions with French farmers  Meanwhile, the Federation of German Industries has praised the deal as a strong signal for free trade.

Farm lobby forces delay to Mercosur pact

Europe's farm lobby has once again shown its strength with a further delay to the signing of the trade deal with the Latin American trade bloc Mercosur which has now been over 25 years in the making

The EU has agreed to delay the signing of its trade deal with South American countries until early January after Italy and France said they needed more time to convince farmers to accept the pact. The decision, which ends plans to complete the long-delayed Mercosur free trade accord by this weekend, came after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni pleaded for more time during a phone call on Thursday with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. 

“We have reached out to our Mercosur partners and agreed to postpone slightly the signature,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen posted on X. The Brazilian leader had warned on Wednesday that if the landmark deal was not signed this weekend it would never be signed during his presidency. But he softened his tone after the call with Meloni, the exponent of pragmatic nationalist politics.

 “Meloni explained that she is not against the agreement, she is simply experiencing some political embarrassment because of the Italian farmers, but that she is certain she is capable of convincing them to accept the agreement,” Lula said. “She asked me that if we have patience for a week, 10 days, at most a month, Italy will join the agreement,” he said, adding that he would relay Meloni’s comments at a meeting of Mercosur countries this weekend. 

The EU’s biggest free trade deal has taken 25 years to negotiate, having been agreed a year ago, pending formal ratification. France has also sought to delay the signing of a deal until its concerns about the impact on farmers were assuaged.

The politics have been complicated by a separate dispute involving French farmers which has somehow become related, at least in the minds of conspiracy theorists.

The French government's handling of an outbreak of bovine lumpy skin disease (LSD) has led to the blocking of highways and inter city railways along with the traditional dumping of manure outside government offices.  The disease can be fatal for cattle, but is harmless for humans.   

Ministers have ordered the culling of herds in affected areas and the vaccination of those nearby.  However, internet rumours say it is part of an EU plot to kill off French cattle in favour of South American beef imports.   Riot police have had to be brought in to protect vets implementing the culls,    The army has been drafted in to speed up vaccinations.

Can 25 year negotiation end with a Christmas present for Brussels?

Brussels is offering European farmers unprecedented guarantees that South American imports will not damage their livelihoods as it seeks to swing support behind its trade deal with the Mercosur bloc of economies.

The European Commission on Wednesday announced legal commitments to investigate any complaint by a member state that its agricultural sector is being damaged as it started the approval process for the EU’s biggest-ever formal free trade deal.

 European farmers in countries including France and Poland have pressured their governments to oppose the “cows for cars” pact with the Mercosur countries, which include Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Brussels wants to secure final approval for the deal by December as it seeks to replace US demand for its products after Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The pact would create a market of 700mn people and boost exports of EU industrial and agrifood products such as cheese and wine. It is expected to compensate for about a third of the export volumes the EU is forecast to lose after Brussels agreed to 15 per cent tariffs on most of the bloc’s exports to the US in July. 

French trade minister Laurent Saint-Martin said the “strengthened safeguard clause . . . is moving in the right direction”. He added: “France will now examine the proposal in detail to ensure the effectiveness of the mechanism.”  Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said it would also assess the safeguards before “supporting or rejecting the final approval of the EU-Mercosur agreement”.

It would take at least four states with 35 per cent of the EU population to block the deal, which was struck last year after 25 years of talks. France’s commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, told his colleagues at their weekly meeting on Wednesday that he had grave reservations that could be addressed only by a “robust safeguard clause”. 

The Commission said it would monitor imports of sensitive products such as beef, chicken and sugar from the South American countries. If they rise by 10 per cent or above — or prices fall 10 per cent below domestic levels — in any member state it will launch an investigation.

The Mercosur agreement allows for either side to suspend or reverse tariff liberalisation if they can prove it has caused injury to farmers, reflecting their continued political clout. Brussels is also expanding an emergency compensation fund that covers market disruption and weather damage to almost €1bn a year.

“We have a belt, we have braces and an insurance policy,” one senior EU official told the Financial Times. The EU estimates it will increase annual exports to Mercosur by up to 39 per cent, or €49bn, supporting more than 440,000 jobs across Europe.

EU agrifood exports to Mercosur are expected to grow by half through the reduction of tariffs on wine and spirits (by up to 35 per cent), chocolate (by 20 per cent) and olive oil (by 10 per cent). South American producers of 344 EU-protected foods such as feta cheese or Parma ham will not be able to use those names. 

However, Copa-Cogeca, which represents EU farmers, said the push to ratify the deal “is deeply damaging and sends yet another negative signal” to the agriculture sector. 

European industry groups issued support statements about the deal. Tariffs on some cars will drop from 35 per cent to zero through the agreement, helping European automakers at a time when they face 15 per levies in the US, their biggest market.

 “We fully support this. The EU has benefited greatly from markets opening up over decades,” Ola Källenius, the boss of Mercedes-Benz and president of the carmaker lobby group ACEA, told the Financial Times. John Clarke, a former commission official who helped negotiate the deal, said it would “eventually be agreed”. “Even France — at least the government — understands it’s a good deal. I and others have demonstrated that the deal will not impact much on European farming,” he told the Pink ‘Un.

Some French members of the European parliament have already said they would vote against the deal. The Greens will bring a case to the European Court of Justice claiming it breaks EU environmental policy. But Bernd Lange, chair of the assembly’s trade committee, still expected overall approval. “It will be a wonderful Christmas gift for the world that we can demonstrate trade can be based on a democratic constructive partnership,” Lange said.

Why Mercosur deal concerns EU farmers

The EU deal with Merocsur has not gone down well with European farmers and this analysis refers to some of their concerns as well as the drivers of the deal: https://ukandeu.ac.uk/eu-and-mercosur-bloc-breakthrough/?mc_cid=60623adc76&mc_eid=a47fa58ca7