Arthur de Laborde / Photo credit: DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP
No scenes of violence and frank discussions with players in the sector. Gabriel Attal once again strolled this Tuesday through the very busy aisles of the Salon de l’Agriculture. The Prime Minister did not fail to place the National Rally in his sights. He thus accuses Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella of being the “stowaways” of the agricultural crisis and of having used the unions to disrupt Emmanuel Macron’s visit on Saturday.
The head of government was questioned on this subject in the morning by Karine Duc, co-president of Rural Coordination in Lot-et-Garonne. “Obviously, on Saturday, people came to mess up and that’s not possible,” Gabriel Attal told him. “It was the anger of the farmers because we have been waiting for answers for a month,” the farmer replied.
“No, we are not abandoning ecology”
A very frank exchange which continued. “There were concrete things. What are we doing there? You express the anger of the farmers, I am responding to you on behalf of the government. And we manage to do it without ending up with scenes that are not good for no one,” added the Prime Minister.
Responding to anger also means responding, sometimes, to certain farmers on questions related to the ecological transition. “Are we abandoning ecology”, asks a farmer to Gabriel Attal. “No, we are not abandoning ecology,” the latter responds, point-for-tat. And added: “Glyphosate has been reduced by 30%. This year, we have spent 250 million euros to find alternatives.”
Gabriel Attal, who is participating in his first Salon, intends to occupy the space as much as possible. He is expected to stay there until at least 7 p.m. and is even considering skipping the question session with the government, in which he was in principle to participate this afternoon in the Assembly.