The cup is full. Under fire from repeated criticism, including from the government, agents of the French Biodiversity Office (OFB) decided, this Friday, January 17 and at the call of a large inter-union movement, to no longer set foot outside. The slogan signed by the CGT, FO, FSU, SNE, Unsa and CGC calls on agents to “no longer carry out any police missions”, “no longer carry out any mission, whatever it may be, towards the agricultural world», or even to “stop all technical support missions to state services, public establishments and local authorities”. From an internal source at the OFB, the movement corresponds to “a total withdrawal” agents.
Agents who had little taste for the last words of François Bayrou, who described Tuesday in his general policy speech as “mistake” controls by environmental inspectors. “When biodiversity inspectors come to inspect ditches or water points with a weapon in their belt on a farm already put on edge by the crisis, it is a humiliation, and therefore a mistake”said the Prime Minister.
«The OFB and its staff are pilloried by governments who are incapable of responding to the crisis that many farmers are experiencing. We can no longer count the ransacked premises, the sometimes personal insults, the threats using tractors and even the endangerment of an agent by sabotaging his vehicle”denounces the inter-union in a press release. Which announces maintaining its slogan of withdrawal “until the Prime Minister makes a public apology, recognizes the need for OFB missions and supports environmental policing actions.”
“We have had enough of what has been happening for over a year and a half”
Anger is shared at all levels of the OFB, which has more than 3,000 agents, including 1,700 environmental inspectors in the field. This Friday morning, the president of the board of directors of the OFB, Sylvie Gustave-dit-Duflo, said in an interview with AFP her “anger”. “We have had enough of what has been happening for more than a year and a half against the OFB and the agents, develops the one who is also vice-president of the Guadeloupe region. When OFB agents come into contact with farmers, it is to carry out control missions and ensure the quality of soil, air, water… Today the establishment and the agents are taken partly because they carry out these missions. When the Prime Minister takes the OFB directly to task without having taken the trouble to take an interest in our missions, in its issues, it is inconceivable, it is a mistake.”
-The president of the board of directors of the OFB also lists the concrete attacks suffered by her staff. “In 2023, our agents suffered the fire at the Brest headquarters; since 2024 and the agricultural crisis there have been more than 55 attacks on the establishment and its agents; We even had an agent whose life was put in danger because the tires of his car were unbolted.”denounces Sylvie Gustave-dit-Duflo, deploring “timid reactions from our ministries (supervisory, Agriculture and Environment). Where have we ever seen the police attacked in this way without the competent authorities coming to their defense?”
Pannier-Runacher calls to stop adding “fuel to the fire”
Also this Friday, the Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, said she regretted that political and union leaders “add fuel to the fire”after the attacks targeting the French Biodiversity Office (OFB). “The OFB agents are the heirs of our country guards and our game wardens. They do the work we ask of them, protecting and policing hunting and the environment. Nothing more”, she declared during a trip to Guilvinec (Finistère). “I file or ask the boss of the OFB to file a complaint systematically when there are acts of a criminal nature committed against agents and the institution”she said again.
On Wednesday, a reaction on France Inter from an OFB agent, member of the National Union of Environmental Personnel (SNAPE)-FO, after Bayrou's remarks, had heated up the spirits a little more: “We have the feeling that what farmers want is to no longer see us on their farms. It’s the same as if the dealers asked the police to no longer come to the cities.” A “ignominy”a “shameful comparison”, denounced Pierrick Horel, president of the Young Farmers (JA). “The OFB must be purely and simply abolished”called the boss of LR deputies Laurent Wauquiez.
