Farmers block a portion of the A9 motorway near Nîmes, January 25, 2024 (AFP/Sylvain THOMAS)
“Here we stay.” Unlike their colleagues from neighboring departments, farmers from Gard are still blocking a highway near Nîmes on Saturday, awaiting “other measures” from the government, particularly for the wine sector.
Installed since Thursday morning under the Delta kilometer interchange which connects the A9 and A54 motorways, there are between 100 and 150 of them, most of them in work clothes, who have come with their tractors and dump trucks, very determined. Hanging from the bridge above them, a mannequin represents a farmer in overalls.
Farmers block a portion of the A9 motorway near Nîmes, January 25, 2024 (AFP/Sylvain THOMAS)
“We are not ready to break camp,” asserts the president of the FDSEA 30 union, David Sève, shortly after speaking with a delegation of elected officials who came, according to him, “to look a little at how to evacuate things “. “But for us, it’s ‘No, we’re staying.’ For the moment there is no discussion.”
“As long as wine-growing measures are not announced, and as long as other measures are not announced, we cannot break camp. The count is really not there. In any case for our Mediterranean cultures, it is is safe, so, concretely, next night? We’ll stay there!”, assures the fifty-year-old trade unionist.
Based in Meynes, with his son, on a 35-hectare vineyard, Jean-Louis Portal, with the build of a rugby player, recalls that Gard wine growers “are coming out of five years with agricultural calamities”. “The treasuries are weakened, and now, with the problem of poor wine sales, we are losing money every month, every day… So, we need help,” he says.
A farmer on a dam established near Nîmes, January 25, 2024 (AFP/ Sylvain THOMAS)
Since the beginning of their occupation, farmers have organized themselves. Piled up across the deserted highway, numerous bales of hay completely block the A9, a strategic axis linking Orange (Vaucluse) to the Spanish border. Large metal tanks serve as barbecues for cooking grilled meats. Alongside tractors and dump trucks, several piles of vines were thrown onto the road.
– “prices, prices, prices…” –
On Saturday, these farmers from Gard received a visit from the Insoumis deputy of the Somme François Ruffin. The LFI elected official – jeans, sweater and black parka – takes notes while talking with breeders, winegrowers, market gardeners. Most of the demonstrators are indifferent, many do not know him but respond willingly to his questions.
“For me, who comes from the North, it’s ‘disorienting’… There, I hear about rice, peaches, vines… I come to verify that deep down, the problems here are also the problems from home,” explains François Ruffin.
Farmers block a portion of the A9 motorway near Nîmes, January 25, 2024 (AFP/Sylvain THOMAS)
“There are obviously local particularities but there is a great national concern, which was not born today or yesterday but which has been dragging on for years (…) and these are the prices, prices, prices”, affirms the LFI MP, who advocates an “agricultural exception” authorizing “customs protections and tariff barriers in order to regulate”.
Wearing a vest and cap bearing the FDSEA logo, Sébastien Gimenez, a farmer in Redessan (Gard), also aspires to more regulation. For this market gardener, with skin tanned by the sun, who went organic almost 10 years ago, “the producer must first be able to impose his prices on mass distribution, obviously conditioned by supporting documents which prove our cost of production”.
“Last night, what Gabriel Attal said was, for us, Chinese. He does not speak the same language as us…”, he fumes.
Farmers block a portion of the A9 motorway near Nîmes, January 25, 2024 (AFP/Sylvain THOMAS)
“We have inflation which has caused prices to rise by 30 to 40% on our inputs. We no longer have any margin!, adds David Sève. Half of those who are there will no longer exist next year. So believe me that people are motivated! Even if it means losing everything, we might as well stay!” he says, before climbing on a bale of hay to call for a minute of silence in tribute to the breeder from Ariège and her daughter, accidentally killed on a dam.
© 2024 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends using the buttons below.
