After more than 25 years of negotiations, the free trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur countries entered into provisional application on May 1. With the rise in fuel prices now disrupting the daily lives of the French, this time they did not massively take to the streets to oppose this umpteenth step in the process of ratification of the text. However, the rejection is indeed massive. According to a study by the Institute for Progress, carried out by Norstat and consulted exclusively by the Tangwall Campagin, 94% of French people demand the suspension of the EU-Mercosur agreement as long as strict guarantees are not provided.
A figure which alone sums up an almost unanimous opposition to a commercial text nevertheless presented as structuring the future of trade between Europe and South America. More broadly, 92% of French people believe that the agreement “endangers French farmers and breeders”more than one in two of whom fully adhere to it. Distrust is also clear in terms of health and food: 73% of respondents say they do not have confidence in meat imported from South America, while 77% say they are concerned about the production conditions of Brazilian meat.
Brazil at the heart of concerns
In detail, the figures confirm a diffuse but deeply rooted concern: 92% consider it unacceptable that imported meat escapes European standards and 93% consider that production conditions create unfair competition for French breeders. Nearly 6 out of 10 French people are even calling for a total suspension of the agreement.
“What the French reject are the distorted conditions of free trade”believes the president of the Institute for Progress, Michael Miguères, recalling that economic theory assumes comparable rules and unbiased competition. However, according to him, “none of these conditions are met with regard to Brazilian meat”.
He goes further, denouncing a double imbalance. “Free trade only creates prosperity if the playing field is level”he writes, pointing out both the differences in standards in Brazil and the constraints weighing on European producers. And to summarize: “Liberalism, the real thing, is not naivety: it is the demand for fair rules. »
It is precisely on Brazil that a large part of the criticism crystallizes. The study highlights a strong concern among the French about production conditions: deforestation, use of antibiotics, health controls considered insufficient. Brazilian meat is thus seen as a major point of tension in the agreement, both on an environmental and health level.
This study was carried out online on April 26 and 27, 2026 with a representative sample of 1,002 French people. It is part of work commissioned by the Institut pour le Progrès, an independent think tank founded in 2021 in the claimed heritage of thinkers like Condorcet and the modernization policy carried out by Georges Pompidou.
