“No other sector has had to endure such a combination of political, economic and climatic factors in a few months. Winegrowers are experiencing unprecedented economic violence,” recalled, the week of November 20, Jean-Marie Fabre, the national president of the Independent Winegrowers of France. In Narbonne (Aude), Saturday November 25, there were 3,000, according to the police – double, according to the organizers – coming to demonstrate “ [leur] anger, [leur] deduction [et leur] generalized fed up ».
This mobilization took place at the call of the union of Independent Winegrowers of France, joined by that of Young Farmers (JA) and the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA). Several elected officials, mayors or departmental and regional councilors from Occitanie were also present.
“The sector, vital for our territories, has been in crisis for several years. But the latest events plunge him into despair”explains Eric Ménassi, the socialist mayor of Trèbes (Aude) and president of the department’s mayors’ association.
These events were detailed by Jérôme Despey, first vice-president of the FNSEA, himself a winegrower in Hérault: “The war in Ukraine, the episodes of frost then drought, falling consumption, the increase in taxes, that of imports, the margins applied by bars and restaurants… We are facing scourges of exceptional violence! »
Frédéric Rouanet, Aude leader of the union of Independent Winegrowers of France, adopted a decidedly serious tone: “Brothers and sisters of the profession, viticulture is dying, Paris must respond”, he said. Thursday October 19, he was at the head of a first demonstration on the Franco-Spanish border, in the Pyrénées-Orientales. Several trucks carrying Spanish wine were then stopped and their cargo dumped on the highway. In Narbonne, on Saturday, the procession passed without incident.
“Full cellars and dry treasuries”
Particularly virulent towards the State, “which endorses a deadly ultraliberalism”of an administration “who strangles [la profession] And [l’] humiliates »or “environmentalists who (…) annoy [le secteur] »Mr. Rouanet called on the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, to “look south”. Undermined by difficulties − “cellars full and treasuries dry” −union leaders are demanding several measures from the government: a blank banking year, storage aid, no new regulations and the generalization of subsidized loans for all.
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