French President Emmanuel Macron called for greater protections for food producers via a “European Egalim” law, a reference to a piece of French legislation regulating trade negotiations between food manufacturers and supermarkets.

According to Euractiv, protecting farmers’ incomes has been a major demand of the farmers’ protests that have popped up all across the EU in recent weeks.

French “Egalim” (États généraux de l’alimentation) laws were passed between 2018 and 2023 to safeguard farmers' income during supply chain negotiations.

The EU adopted a similar set of food producer protections in 2019. However, that directive has looser requirements than those laid out in the French “Egalim” laws.

The EU rules created a blacklist of 10 practices banned at the international level to balance contractual powers between small farmers and their buyers. The French legislation goes a step beyond that, requiring operators to take into account the increase in farmers’ production costs during trade negotiations.

“In the context of a single market, with a single currency and a common agricultural policy, I don’t see how we can put in place French regulations that don’t exist anywhere else,” Philippe Goetzmann, a specialist in the agri-food industry and head of the Philippe Goetzmann consultancy, said in an interview with Euractiv. “European regulation can be a solution. To do this, France needs to increase its credibility and assert its position. Because other, more competitive countries probably don’t want it.”

Recently, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced tighter controls on negotiations surrounding French raw materials that don’t comply with the “Egalim” law. The law does not apply to EU or non-EU products sold in France.