‘I said good things about pesticides’: agriculture minister sneers after argument

Should we see an ironic phrase or a real opinion? The question arises around a sequence that is talked about a lot on social media. This Friday, journalist Hugo Clément tweeted a video from his media outlet Vakita in which Agriculture Secretary Marc Féno told a woman in the hallways of the Senate, “You saw me talking about the benefits of pesticides.”

Faced with controversy, he tried to respond quickly in the same social network. “The ironic phrase is addressed to one of your colleagues from the Public Senate after an exchange with your media, and not upstream (bravo to the editor),” the minister assures.

Accusing Vaquita’s journalists of not wanting to catch the “second degree” of his remarks, he informed them that it would be “enough (…) to ask a question” to his interlocutor to understand that it was a joke. “However, it requires good work. Be professional. To be a journalist, in fact, ”the minister took up the matter.

Reaction quickly blossomed on the left of the political spectrum. “We thought we had a minister of agriculture. We have a lobbyist for transnational corporations producing pesticides,” Francois Ruffin, an LFI deputy, addressed in particular.

“It’s good to talk about pesticides, is that a source of pride in itself? Do you serve the general interest or the interests of the chemical industry? asked Nupes-LFI MP Antoine Léoman. “Intensive agriculture and its destructive effect are clearly laughable,” criticized the elected representative of the same party, Aurélie Truvu.

” You’re lying “

The story didn’t stop there. A few hours after this tweet, Hugo Clément, as well as one of his media journalists, broadcast a longer video of Marc Féno’s conversations as he left the Senate. We see the minister’s initial sequence and his polemical phrase. He then briefly chats with other people before being approached by a Vakita journalist who then begins his interview – contrary to what Marc Feno assured in his tweet. In a commentary, journalist and activist Hugo Clément accuses the minister of lying.

This footage was linked to a video about intensive farming to respond to a CNRS study explaining that the practice was responsible for the extinction of birds in Europe.