When Emmanuel Macron crashes, shortly before 8 p.m. Saturday February 24, in front of the cameras, in the aisles of 60e International Agricultural Show (SIA), its jubilation bursts from the screen. After coming close to the precipice, he managed to inaugurate the event, and even find favor with some of the farmers. “ Who would have said this morning that twelve hours later, we would find ourselves here continuing to work, moving forward? », he rejoices, his eyes shining.
Not him anyway. The day has just dawned when the Head of State is introduced, through a back door, into Hall V of the Exhibition Center in Paris, protected by men from the Security Group of the Presidency of the Republic (GSPR) . He thus avoids the pack of journalists parked for more than an hour at the entrance to the hall, but above all he feigns the farmers who have spent the night around a brazier in front of the main entrance, waiting for him. . The Head of State has a meeting upstairs with the heads of the agricultural unions for a closed-door breakfast decided the evening before.
But outside, the rumor of his surreptitious arrival spread like wildfire, triggering the fury of the farmers. Activists from the Rural Coordination and the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA), the first agricultural union, climbed the entrance barriers and entered the main hall, that of the animals, opening the way for nearly 300 to 400 demonstrators. “The hunt for Macron is on! “, some shout, ” Where is he ? “, threaten others. They break through the lines of plainclothes police, managing to progress among the stands. Blows are exchanged, the whistles of the demonstrators deafen the hangar; the Norman cows, panicked, pull on their halters.
“ We do not respond to suffering by sending the CRS », Philosophized the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, at the end of January. Very quickly, however, four CRS companies stationed outside, equipped with heavy helmets and shields, deployed along the paths to repel the farmers. Two others will join them in the morning, as well as the mobile gendarmes. “ Macron resignation “, chant the peasants, dressed in t-shirts “ We walk on the head “. Faced with the “fierce soldiers” of the President of the Republic, they chant The Marseillaisea war song from rural France, which evokes the land that produces, the furrows that are watered and the countryside that rises.
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