This photograph taken on February 14, 2024 shows cows on a collective farm (Groupement Agricole d’Exploitation en Commun GAEC) in Montigne-les-Rairies (AFP/GUILLAUME SOUVANT)
Ten days before the Agricultural Show, Emmanuel Macron received two agricultural unions on Wednesday who welcomed the “listening” of the Head of State while choosing to continue mobilization on the ground, while awaiting “the realization” of the government announcements.
The President of the Republic, who traditionally receives the unions before the show, met successively in the afternoon with representatives of the Rural Coordination and the Peasant Confederation, respectively 2nd and 3rd agricultural unions.
Next week he will see the FNSEA, in the majority, while his Prime Minister Gabriel Attal must go to a cattle farm in the Marne on Thursday.
The atmosphere remains electric. If the unions have taken note of the emergency aid announced – 400 million euros -, according to them, this is not enough to respond to the deep malaise in the countryside where many farmers are unable to generate “a decent income”.
The head of state “took the measure of the situation” and heard “our subliminal message: ‘Leave us alone and let us work'”, Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, president of the Chamber of Commerce, told the press. agriculture of Lot-et-Garonne and figure of Rural Coordination (CR), leaving the Elysée.
At her side, Karine Duc, co-president of the CR in Lot-et-Garonne, listed the “strong points” discussed, in particular the request for “emergency cash flow measures” for farmers, “simplification for all the floors”, the lifting of production constraints, particularly environmental ones, or the imposition of the same standards on imports as in France.
“Ecology is we who do it in our fields, we have already made a lot of efforts. Let us produce,” she added, while the government suspended it, to the consternation of NGOs. environmental issues, the Ecophyto plan on reducing the use of pesticides in France.
“After the measures announced by the government, we asked for a clear timetable,” said Karine Duc, specifying that her union would maintain “the pressure” with actions for as long as necessary.
– “At the end of a system” –
On Wednesday in Agen – from where the union had initiated a convoy to Rungis, the food hub of the Paris region – CR members dumped straw in front of a bank branch, to demand the suspension of loan repayments for 2024.
Rural Coordination also warned the Head of State that any meeting of the executive with the FNSEA alone “would be tainted by suspicion of co-management”.
Arnaud Rousseau (d), president of the FNSEA, and Arnaud Gaillot, president of Young Farmers, during a press conference following their meeting with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, February 13, 2024 in Paris (AFP /GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT)
The day before, the boss of the powerful federation, Arnaud Rousseau, and the president of Young Farmers, Arnaud Gaillaud, had welcomed “progress” after a two-hour meeting with Gabriel Attal, while also indicating “to maintain the pressure”.
The FNSEA wants to see the first results of simplification measures on farms, demands a “software change” from the government and expects the brakes on production to be lifted: ban on pesticides, unfair competition, overabundance of standards and paperwork, according to it .
Laurent Wauquiez visits a collective farm to meet breeders and farmers in Montigne-les-Rairies, February 14, 2024 (AFP/GUILLAUME SOUVANT)
“We control our farmers more than the deal points and drug trafficking,” added LR Laurent Wauquiez, who has presidential ambitions for 2027, during the last stage on Wednesday of his discreet “agricultural tour” of three weeks.
FNSEA and JA obtained from Gabriel Attal the principle of a monthly monitoring point on simplification, but Arnaud Rousseau warned: after two weeks of blockage and the worst crisis in the agricultural world in 30 years, “that no one thinks that because that the tractors have returned, things are settled”. The “quality” of Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the show “will depend on it”.
The Farmers’ Confederation, received late in the afternoon by the president, asked for “a strong signal” from the government “to put an end to competition between farmers.” “We ask the government to announce the end of negotiations on free trade treaties”, in particular that of Mercosur with Latin America, declared its spokesperson Laurence Marandola.
On the question of income, central for the union born from the anti-globalization peasant struggles, Laurence Marandola pleaded for legislating on “the prohibition of transactions below the cost price, that is to say production costs, remuneration and Social Protection”.
A peasant’s suit padded on a cross and a sign indicating “agriculture, children we dream, adults we die” displayed in a vineyard in Calignac, 22 km east of Agen (AFP/Philippe LOPEZ)
“We are at the end of a system. This is not an agricultural crisis like any other,” she told AFP during the day.
Faced with climate change, soil pollution and human exhaustion, the Peasant Confederation expects from the government “strong support for the agro-ecological transition” and the “indispensable” reaffirmation of an ambitious trajectory for reducing pesticides .
She also does not intend to let down her guard before the Agricultural Show and is planning numerous peaceful actions throughout France. In the Var, she organized a “wild market” in front of a Carrefour store on Wednesday, offering “farmer products” to raise consumer awareness.
© 2024 AFP
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