Major French retail groups are continuing to boycott a preparatory meeting at Bercy on Monday 2 November, postponed from 28 October and meant to bring together agrifood manufacturers and distributors one month before commercial negotiations begin. The Fédération du commerce et de la distribution (FCD), which represents chains including E. Leclerc, Carrefour and Intermarché, said it would not take part in the preparation committee until two conditions were recognised by all: transparency over agricultural raw material costs and differentiated treatment for SMEs.
Agrifood manufacturers' organisations Ania, Ilec, Culture Viande, La Coopération agricole and poultry industries criticised the distributors' absence in a joint statement, saying it mainly spared them from having to account for their own practices. Pact'Alim, which represents agrifood SMEs and mid-sized companies, said in a separate statement that the next negotiations must not reproduce the imbalances seen in recent years.
Annual negotiations between supermarkets and food suppliers run from 1 December to 1 March and determine shelf prices excluding retailers' own brands; they are regularly accused of putting pressure on farmers' pay. With the 2026-2027 round expected to be particularly tense and inflation unavoidable, the government said two weeks earlier that it wanted to bring stakeholders together upstream with a view to a "pact of responsibility."
The directives will concern all actors in the negotiations, Commerce Minister Serge Papin's office said on Sunday, describing the aim as balancing French purchasing power with imported inflation that penalises farmers and SMEs and should be passed on to them as a priority. The office also said the FCD's demands were already taken into account in new provisions of the agricultural emergency law, including a shorter deadline for ending negotiations with SMEs than with other manufacturers, partly to prevent SMEs from becoming the adjustment variable at the end of the talks.
Sources: Le Figaro.