French Farmers protested in Paris yesterday (Monday, May 27) outside the National Assembly, the country's parliament, in favour of a new law to ease administrative burden and "constraints" in the agriculture sector.

The law is seen as part of a wider effort across the EU to simplify regulations faced by farmers, in the wake of farmer protests around Europe in early 2024.

However, over the course of recent weeks it has become increasingly apparent that environmental and 'green' members of the National Assembly would look to scupper the law, according to farm organisations.

Deputies opposing the law are understood to be angered over the loosening of environmental regulations, including on pesticide use.

#loicontraintes | Les tracteurs #fnsea @JeunesAgri se mettent en place ce matin devant l' @AssembleeNat. Une mobilisation pour lever les entraves qui pèsent sur le métier d'agriculteurs. pic.twitter.com/1oMhJq7MpL— La FNSEA (@FNSEA) May 26, 2025

According to the largest French farm organisation, the FNSEA, a combination of green and left-wing parties tabled some 2,500 amendments to the legal text, which, the FNSEA claimed, was in an effort to filibuster the legislative procedure and prevent passage of the law.

Five days of debate in the assembly had been allocated for this law. However, the farm organisation feared that, with the number of amendments to be debated, that this five day clock would run down without the law being sent forward to the next stage of the legislative process.

The protest, organised by the FNSEA as well as young farmer and rural youth organisation Jeunes Agriculteurs (JA), called for the National Assembly to reject delaying tactics from the environmental deputies.

Ultimately, the protesting farmers received a desirable result from the day's proceedings in the assembly, with the law now set to be put to parliamentary committee debate in the next stage of the legislative process, in spite of the raft of amendments from the left.

In an FNSEA statement (translated into English) over the weekend ahead of the assembly debate and farmer protest, the farm organisation said: "The bill, awaited for 18 months by farmers who expressed their frustration in early 2024, is finally being discussed...at the National Assembly. This inclusion on the agenda is a victory for the JA and FNSEA.

"Unfortunately, it is now almost certain that the discussion of this text will never reach its conclusion. The [left] and Green groups in the National Assembly have indeed played the obstruction card by submitting nearly 2,500 amendments to the text, with the aim of preventing its adoption", the FNSEA had claimed.

The statement added: "JA and the FNSEA strongly condemn this practice, which undermines democratic debate and demonstrates profound contempt for the men and women who rose up a year ago to express their expectations regarding working conditions that deserve to be reviewed to attract new generations."

Then, in a statement yesterday after the protest, the FNSEA said: "JA and the FNSEA salute the responsibility of the deputies who voted...to preserve...the continuation of parliament's work on this text.

"For JA and the FNSEA, the objective is clear: the text must now be adopted as quickly as possible and in any case before the end of the summer parliamentary proceedings. To this end, we call on the government to immediately announce the date of the [parliamentary] committee. Farmers, mobilised over the past few days, are losing patience," that statement said.