France has a new favorite word: “Food sovereignty.” It sounds independent, self-determined, and nationally strong. Who could oppose that? Who wants to import food from abroad when it can be grown right outside their door?
The government’s reaction is simple: When farmers protest, they loosen regulations. When farmers can protest again, they loosen them a little more. And if that causes wetlands to disappear, rivers to dry up, or animals to lose their last refuge – well, nature after all does not block highways or litter in front of ministries.
The real tragedy of this new agricultural law does not lie in the individual provisions. It lies in its message. France suddenly pretends it must choose: Either agriculture or the environment. Either food or biodiversity. Either the farmer or the beaver.
What an absurd contrast.
Because nature is not the enemy of agriculture. Nature is its prerequisite. Without water, there are no crops. Without pollinating insects, there are no fruit trees. Without healthy soil, there is no food sovereignty. Those who cut off the branch they are sitting on should not be surprised if one day they fall.
Particularly remarkable is the political pace of this turnaround. For many years, people were told that climate change is the greatest challenge of our time. Protecting biodiversity is indispensable. Water will become the most precious resource of the century.
Then came a few months of farmers’ protests – and suddenly politics discovers that environmental regulations are clearly just non-binding decorations.
Nature faces a structural problem: It has no representation with convoys of tractors. Frogs do not march in Paris. Wetlands do not block provincial parliament halls. Bees do not organize general strikes. They simply disappear. Silently. Permanently.
Sadly, that is nature’s political weakness.
So, from a law supporting agriculture, it has become a document of political surrender. Not to the farmers – their concerns are often well-founded. But to the idea that short-term conflicts can be resolved by exacerbating long-term problems.
Today France is celebrating agriculture. That is understandable. But the time will come to pay the price. And then it may be discovered that food security on a depleted field is a concept as convincing as going to sea without water.
Nature does not make demands. It does not write petitions. It does not vote.
It only reacts. And its judgment is final.