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Our interview with Claude Roustan lasted just over 20 minutes on Thursday, January 29, during the Assises, in a small room away from the debates, in the presence of Adrien Guiset, FNPF communications manager. The president was dressed in a gray suit, with a discreet red pin, the symbol of the Légion d'Honneur. After a few words added by hand to refine his closing speech, which he had to deliver after our interview, Claude Roustan was ready.
Almost all the federations were present at the third edition of the Assises de la Pêche, and 18 of them spoke to the 320-strong audience on the common theme of volunteers. They presented their solutions for recruiting and involving volunteers, but despite everything, the decline in the number of volunteers seems inescapable. How does the FNPF assess the situation?
Unfortunately, the volunteer crisis is not limited to the fishing world. But we're trying to make up for it. I often tell public authorities that, despite everything, there are 40,000 fishing volunteers. Volunteers who want to help out because they're keen to protect the aquatic environment. But it's true, and we're feeling it particularly when it comes to the administrative investment for an AAPPMA, it's becoming complicated. It's a phenomenon that developed a lot after COVID. People are now interested in a task, a function, an activity. They're less likely to invest in managing the AAPPMA as a whole.
The Ardèche fishing federation presented a solution that relies on a private structure to help volunteers. Is the volunteer system still viable in the fishing world, as the missions are heavy and there is often a lack of knowledge...
All solutions are welcome. I listened to what Ardèche had to say. There's a lot of good will and a lot of ideas. Will it work? If it works, why not, I'm ready to look at all the experiments that are being set up. For all that, and this is my personal fiber, volunteering is like militancy. If we have volunteers, do they become militants? Do we need volunteers and activists? I think we need both. We need volunteers in the AAPPMAs and activists to defend the cause. The volunteer will be interested in a particular subject: restoring spawning grounds, for example.
Activists will be interested in the running of their AAPPMA. I'd already like to have volunteers, and for volunteers to become activists. Our system of associative management of recreational fishing is unique in Europe, and the envy of many countries. No stretch of river escapes the control of an AAPPMA. The AAPPMA is the foundation of the recreational fishing structure. This is where we need to work to encourage volunteerism. It also implies a social link, which has to be created all the time: we're going to work, but we're also going to have a bite to eat and a drink. It's a subject for the future that the national federation needs to address, because it's vital for the future of fishing organization.
And 2026 is a pivotal year for volunteers, as it's an election year for AAPPMAs. The FNPF calls on anglers to get involved?
I do it in all my editorials: get involved, we need you. This is my appeal: we need you! If we want to keep this original, unique organization of associative fishing, we need these volunteers and activists. Otherwise, when you leave it to the State to manage, you know what happens... Today, we're lucky to be in control. I built the structure of the FNPF so that it was the fishermen who had control over their organization, and we need to keep it that way. It's an appeal I'm constantly making: we need activists to safeguard the organization of associative fishing.
Then, in 2027, elections will be held for the departmental federations, followed by the regional associations, and finally - the timetable is not quite set yet - for the FNPF. 2027 is tomorrow. Will you be standing for re-election?
I don't rule anything out. If the conditions are right, if the context is as favorable as it is today, why not. It's not a question of age, but of desire and passion. For the moment, I'm still keen and I'm still passionate [Editor's note: Claude Roustan, 76, has been president since 2003, a total of five terms] .
We hear criticism on the networks, sometimes even from influential fishermen. Is it directed at the FNPF and the presidency?
I'm not very touched... We've taken it in the face, the evolution of social networks. Everyone's letting off steam... But people don't know me from Adam or Eve, they don't know what my life is like, they think I'm unapproachable... I live in an isolated village in the Alpes-de Haute-Provence, where there are 5 inhabitants in winter, I have a very modest car, I'm a normal citizen, nothing more than ordinary.
What can I do? I'm not going to answer all those people, those who criticize without any basis. The FNPF doesn't do anything? But people don't know, don't know how associative fishing is organized. I'm not the president of the fishermen, I'm the president of the departmental federations. The contact for anglers is the AAPPMA. They represent their members!
But AAPPMAs have little power to move things forward...
I'm the representative of the departmental fishermen's federations. The power we have is what comes back to us through our democratic system, through the departmental federations with their representatives on the boards of directors. We try to work because it's my role to be in contact with the public authorities, the Ministries, the Water Directorate, and that's where we try to make our influence felt.
But when you're an organization like ours, you can't win every time. You have to negotiate, work, insist, mobilize, get angry... Internet users don't know everything we do, but we work very hard to make things change, and it's not easy. I can't accept reading "the FNPF does nothing". No, the FNPF is constantly mobilized. I'm in constant contact with the Ministries, in today's difficult governmental contexts, things change a lot, the cabinet doesn't agree with the water department... we're victims of all that. But it's also normal, as the head of the network, for people to say "but what's he doing up there? You have to accept that.
night fishing, among other topics...
