the Coquelin Eggs have a falling out with the prefect

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The administrative court of Rennes looked, Tuesday, December 10, at the legality of refusal which had been opposed by the regional prefect to Coquelin Eggswho wanted to exploit fourteen hectares in Châtellier and to Villamee not far from Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine).

Requests from two farmers deemed priority

Jacques and Servane Lagrève, joined since 2020 by their son Pierre who is to take over the family business, operate Œufs Coquelin in Louvigné-du-Désert, a company created by Servane Lagrève's farmer parents in 1979.

In 2021, they announced the “doubling” of their production, setting themselves the objective of producing “13 million eggs per year”. For this, they invested one million euros. On May 23, 2022, the regional prefect nevertheless refused to grant them authorization to exploit 14 hectares of plots located between Poilley, Villamée and Le Châtellier.

They were in fact “ in competition » with two other farmers and had only been authorized to exploit “one plot” located in Poilley. For the rest, the state services had deemed the requests of the two other farmers more “priority”.

Decision mid-January

The Lagrève family therefore appealed to the Rennes administrative court to have the regional prefect's order annulled: they consider that the decision presents several “vices” having altered the procedure. For them, the person signing the contested order was legally “not competent” to do so since they had not benefited from a “signing delegation”.

But for the rapporteur publicresponsible for making recommendations to the court, there was “no formal defect” in this case. The “referral” to a departmental commission was also only “optional” in this matter; this therefore did not constitute a “procedural defect” either. Œufs Coquelin also criticizes the prefect for not having examined the competing requests “plot by parcel”, but here again, the public rapporteur saw no difficulty in this.

Basically, the “only argument” invoked by Œufs Coquelin consisted of saying that the owner of the plot “refused” to rent his land to their competitor.

The fact remains that the “prefect’s control” aims precisely to ensure that the farmer’s choice does not rest on “the sole will of the land owners”.

In the end, the magistrate therefore concluded that the request should be rejected. The company's lawyer, for the most part, relied on her submissions.

The court will rule “mid-January”.

CB (PressPepper)

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