Farmers from the CR47 union (Rural Coordination 47) during a blockade of the A62 motorway near Agen, in Lot-et-Garonne, January 27, 2024 (AFP/Christophe ARCHAMBAULT)
Blockades are being lifted and traffic is resuming on certain highways on Saturday but the farmers, far from being all satisfied with the government’s announcements, are wondering about the continuation of their movement.
In the south, the A9 motorway “has been reopened over most of its route,” Vinci Autoroutes said in a press release. But it remains cut off in the Gard.
On the side of the A64 motorway near Carbonne (Haute-Garonne), the first farmers’ barrier to have been installed 10 days ago, the unblocking was in progress at midday. “We were heard, we had some answers” even if “everything will not be perfect straight away”, judged Joël Tournier, one of the spokespersons for the movement in Carbonne, with the breeder Jérôme Bayle.
According to the gendarmerie, the number of blockages and affected departments is decreasing sharply: Saturday at 6:00 a.m., there were fewer than 40 actions affecting 28 departments.
But the movement remains diffuse, with situations varying locally across France and farmers divided between those who believe they have obtained satisfaction and others who wish to relaunch the movement after a pause.
“We are going to take the weekend to rest our minds and bodies” and “to recalibrate next week’s mobilization,” Pierrick Horel, general secretary of the Young Farmers (JA), a union which, associated with at the FNSEA, represents the majority of the profession.
– “discussions” –
A national administrator of the JA, Maxime Buizard, had earlier announced on BFMTV that he had “decided to change method and organize the blockade of Paris and the inner suburbs”.
Farmers from the CR47 union (Rural Coordination 47) during a blockade of the A62 motorway near Agen, in Lot-et-Garonne, January 27, 2024 (AFP/Christophe ARCHAMBAULT)
“For the moment, it is not decided,” procrastinates Pierrick Horel, whose organization must consult with the FNSEA on the continuation of the movement. “There are discussions, there are some who temper it, there are some who decide to block everything,” explains David Sève, of the FDSEA du Gard.
So on Saturday in the middle of the afternoon, the Lot-et-Garonne Rural Coordination announced “to go to Paris” to “block (the) Rungis market”.
The mobilization was mourned on Tuesday by the accidental death of a farmer and her daughter on a dam in Pamiers (Ariège). On Saturday, several thousand people took part in a white march in this city organized in their memory.
“There is a considerable crowd (…) solidarity and emotion have gone beyond Ariège and the world of agriculture,” declared Philippe Lacube, president of the Ariège chamber of agriculture.
White march in tribute to the farmer and her daughter who accidentally died on a farmers’ roadblock, on January 27, 2024 in Pamiers in Ariège (AFP/Matthieu RONDEL)
To try to extinguish the rising revolt in the countryside where many are no longer able to make a living from their profession, the Prime Minister unveiled emergency measures on Friday in Occitania, the cradle of the protest. “We will not let you go,” he said.
He thus acceded to some of the most pressing demands of the demonstrators between the abandonment of the increase in the tax on non-road diesel (GNR), inflated compensation for breeders affected by MHE cattle disease, sanctions heavy actions against three agri-food manufacturers not respecting the Egalim laws on prices.
The measures “are expected to be applied to other subjects,” promised Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau on Saturday.
– “a Cape” –
“What was said this evening does not calm the anger, we must go further,” said FNSEA president Arnaud Rousseau on Friday.
White march in tribute to the farmer and her daughter who accidentally died on a farmers’ roadblock, on January 27, 2024 in Pamiers in Ariège (AFP/Matthieu RONDEL)
The Peasant Confederation, for its part, wants to “continue the mobilization” to obtain “structural measures”.
“People are exasperated by the fact that these are not the announcements we expected,” Lucie Delbarre, general secretary of the FDSEA of Pas-de-Calais, said on Saturday. “We have a state that doesn’t care about its farmers. We can see it clearly, it’s a pressure cooker ready to explode.”
In Narbonne, a building of the Mutualité sociale agricole (MSA) was set on fire Friday afternoon on the sidelines of a farmers’ demonstration, while in Nîmes, a Customs office and eight vehicles were burned. .
Farmers block the A10 motorway with tractors, near the Péage de Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines toll gates southwest of Paris, January 26, 2024 (AFP/Dimitar DILKOFF)
Everywhere across France, the leading agricultural power of the European Union, a mixture of passion and despair was expressed, with processions here displaying a straw hanger, there displaying the slogan “Children we dream of it, adults we die of it “.
In Matignon, the reception of the measures is carefully scrutinized in the run-up to the European elections in June and Gabriel Attal’s entourage promises “to continue to bring a certain number of measures between now and the Agricultural Show” at the end FEBRUARY.
“We must give French agriculture a direction. We must tell it what it must do: its objective is to be competitive with the factory farms of Brazil or Ukraine, or its goal is to feed as it Do the French need it?” asked LFI deputy for Somme François Ruffin.
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© 2024 AFP
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