The Ministers of Ecological Transition and Agriculture Christophe Béchu and Marc Fesneau were the target of egg throwing and whistles Friday afternoon at the Agricultural Show, forcing them to cut short an event, noted a journalist of the AFP. Around twenty people, some of whom said they were members of the departmental federation of the FNSEA of Seine-et-Marne, shouted in particular “Fesneau resignation” and brandished signs “Come back to Earth”, while the two ministers were on the stand of Ademe, the ecological transition agency.
“We have noticed that for three weeks, nothing has progressed”
Marc Fesneau and Christophe Béchu were forced to leave this stand, escorted by a large cordon of plainclothes police officers. Benoît, a farmer claiming to be a member of the FDSEA77 and who did not wish to give his last name, claimed the action in the name of this departmental federation of the majority agricultural union. “We have noticed that for three weeks, nothing is moving forward,” he told AFP. “We want solutions, at the moment, there are none for certain problems, like beets for example where we have products approved in Europe, in certain European countries and which are not approved here among others.”
“The ministers must still be aware that the base is not happy,” he added, while a little earlier, Minister Béchu met the president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, in the living room. Cyrille Milard, the president of the FDSEA77, then told AFP that he had not been informed of this action. “There was no instruction. I’m not going to say that they are wrong either, when you have been making a mess for 30 years, you have to accept that at some point, you will be heckled as a politician . Now, egg throwing, I do not condone,” he declared.
Friday morning before dawn, the Rural Coordination, a competing union of the FNSEA, carried out a surprise action at the Arc de Triomphe, a highly symbolic place and scene of violence during the “yellow vest” crisis in 2018. 66 people were arrested, according to the police headquarters. “We will not give up,” said the president of Rural Coordination, Véronique Le Floc’h, to AFP. But at the management of the FNSEA, there is no question for the moment of calling for a new national mobilization after the Show, its number two, Hervé Lapie, told AFP on Friday, who favors working with the government.