(Paris) Blocked roads, media calls, soon radar coverings: supported by a large part of the political class, French farmers are not giving up to obtain “concrete measures” from the government of Gabriel Attal which welcomed the majority unions on Monday at the start of the evening.
The first French agricultural union, the FNSEA, has won numerous arbitrations with the government for several years, such as on taxes on water or pesticides, but the mass of farmers continue to complain of being overwhelmed by standards and of not not earning a good enough living.
Among the many demands heard on the ground: administrative simplifications, no new bans on pesticides, stopping increasing the price of diesel for tractors, being compensated more quickly after calamities, or even the full application of the law supposed to oblige manufacturers and supermarkets to pay farmers better.
The Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau arrived shortly before 6 p.m. in Matignon, where the leaders of the FNSEA and the Young Farmers Union also went who were to meet the Prime Minister, noted AFP. Gabriel Attal has already promised on Saturday to “make life easier” for farmers by reducing “red tape”.
“I can tell you that from today and throughout the week and for as long as it is necessary, a certain number of actions will be carried out,” declared the president of the FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau on France Inter.
PHOTO VALENTINE CHAPUIS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
The road blockages began in Occitanie where, since Thursday evening, the A64 between Toulouse and Bayonne has been cut off to traffic at Carbonne (Haute-Garonne), 45 km from Toulouse. It should remain so on Tuesday.
Since Monday, the A62 has been blocked at Agen in both directions.
But “no evacuation of the blockages by the police is planned at this stage, because there is no damage”, assured the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin.
“We don’t send the CRS on people who are suffering,” the minister’s entourage added to AFP.
Price crisis
The government fears a conflagration because, from the Netherlands to Romania via Poland and Germany, farmers are stepping up actions against tax increases and the European “Green Deal”. All this against a backdrop of inflation and competition from Ukrainian imports and before the European elections in June.
PHOTO DANIEL MIHAILESCU, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Demonstration of Romanian farmers, January 16.
According to a police source, at this stage “a few hundred” farmers are mobilized, but “if there is no response from the authorities, there could be a radicalization of actions”.
This source notes that their movement remains “popular” in public opinion, especially since they “do not make any mistakes”, with instead “free toll actions, neutralization of automatic radars”.
However, the government has been trying to protect the profession for years.
In December, former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced to the FNSEA and the JA the abandonment of tax increases on pesticides and irrigation, to the great dismay of environmental associations and water stakeholders.
“For us the real crisis is around the price” of agricultural production and “income,” Laurence Marandola, spokesperson for the Confédération Paysanne, the third French agricultural union, classified on the left, told AFP.
She attributes it to “policies implemented for decades, to ultra-liberalism”, according to her “implemented with collusion between successive governments and the FNSEA”.
In Vendée, the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau said he wanted to accelerate the construction of reserves, described as “megabasins” by their environmentalist detractors.
Visiting the German agricultural show, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised farmers on Monday to reduce bureaucracy and “make the lives of those who work and live on farms easier”. Words which echo those of Gabriel Attal on Saturday.
A Breton calf breeder, Sébastien Sachet, explained to AFP that he had to spend “around an hour every day” completing and filing purely administrative documents.
“We always have to think about something, even in the evening when we go to bed our brain is still spinning,” he describes.
“Ignition delay”
The spokesperson for the National Rally (RN) Sébastien Chenu estimated Monday on TF1 that the government was “delayed in starting” in the face of old grievances.
Both right and left have asked the executive to stop increasing the cost of fuel for tractors.
The Ministry of the Economy and the FNSEA agreed last summer on a gradual reduction in the tax loophole on non-road diesel (GNR), in exchange for compensation. Arnaud Rousseau had previously defended a “bearable trajectory”, negotiated by the union “in responsibility”.