Résumé
This analysis of agricultural unionism aims to better understand the relationship between institutions with specific interests - specialized associations - and professional organizations with a general vocation. The understanding of the genesis and development of "specialized associations" - particularly in the case of milk (FNPL) and cereals (AGPB) - provides a better understanding of the mechanisms of representation and defense of interests within the French agricultural sector. For more than seventy years, the specialized associations have developed forms of representation and defense of interests based on a primarily economic and technical legitimacy. Around the model of the agricultural enterprise, now recognized as dominant in the market referential, the specialized associations rely on the small group of producers who bring the majority of products to the market. Their links with the farming community are complex: the entrenchment of local and national levels, the cross responsibilities of many of their leaders make these organizations "pivotal institutions" in the space of French agricultural organizations. The specialized associations, which are closely linked to agricultural trade unionism with a general vocation (FNSEA), are gradually emerging from the constraints of "professional solidarity". Their links with general unionism become more utilitarian and they do not hesitate to circumvent it when their interests compel them to do so. The drastic decline in the number of farmers in France and the gradual end of the particularities which have long been the mainstay of agricultural policy making, make specialized associations of economic interest groups in many ways similar to those of other sectors. than the agricultural world.