In a cabinet reshuffle last week, French president Emmanuel Macron chose 59-year-old senator Didier Guillaume as the new minister for agriculture to lead the EU’s largest farming country into the next CAP.

One of his first statements was to confirm that “this government will ban glyphosate in 2020,” while also promising time for farmers to find alternatives. The licensing of the leading herbicide active was a point of disagreement between former Minister for the Environment and cabinet heavyweight Nicolas Hulot, who resigned in August, and then Minister for Agriculture Stéphane Travert, fired last week.

Guillaume is a former member of the tax administration and career politician with the centre-left Socialist Party. In June, he pushed a failed amendment calling for agriculture to be treated separately from other sectors in international trade talks. On that occasion, he spoke out against proposed cuts in CAP spending after 2020.

“We cannot accept from the outset that the CAP budget would fall by 20% or 30%,” he said.

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