After blockages on major roads in the country, farmers are changing strategies. Despite Gabriel Attal’s first announcements last week, operators now want to surround Paris, deeming the measures taken by the government insufficient to respond to their distress.
The capital is not the only one targeted by this type of action since farmers from Rhône-Alpes are also organizing the encirclement of Lyon this Monday morning. Questioned on La Grande interview Europe 1-CNews, MEP François-Xavier Bellamy denounces the double game of the presidential majority between representatives in the European Parliament and the French government. “Macronie did the opposite in Strasbourg of what it says in Paris,” he explains at Sonia Mabrouk’s microphone.
Multiplication of free trade treaties
“I am outraged because for two years now, with our group, the EPP, with the European right, with the Republicans, we have been asking for a moratorium on environmental issues saying: ‘there are many subjects on which we have regulated , on which we created standards and we created constraints. And now, we have to stop, look at how it works,” he judges.
The question of free trade treaties also strains the agricultural question, while the European Union is increasing its exchange projects with third parties, while the Farm to fork project remains contested by the right. The latter notably provides for the resting of 10% of European agricultural land as well as a significant reduction of 50% in the use of pesticides by 2030. According to a study by the European Commission, the drop in production would be around 10%.
France responsible for its own misfortune?
“I am obviously hostile to free trade agreements,” maintains François-Xavier Bellamy, while part of his European group is still favorable to this type of text. But the head of the list for the 2024 European elections is especially concerned to see that “France is destroying the competitiveness of those who work on its soil. When you explain to French farmers that you are going to impose rules on them that “they don’t even suffer their neighbors in Europe”, it can only go wrong, assures the vice-president of the Republicans.
“For example, we have been warning about the subject for two years. You are telling those who produce beet in France that they will not be able to use neonicotinoids, even coated, to protect bees, while beet does not produce flowers and the bees do not pollinate it. And at the same time, in Belgium, in Germany, you can use the same product on beets. But in fact, you are not saving the hive at all . You are just destroying your economy,” he concludes.