“If you were paid 300 euros per month and the rest were subsidies, you would have hatred too,” says Pierre Larrouturou

MEP Nouvelle Donne cites as an example Spain and its socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez who “put VAT at 0% on food products” and promulgated “a law which protects farmers’ income”.

“If you were paid 300 euros per month and the rest were subsidies, you would hate it too” says Pierre Larrouturou, “Nouvelle Donne” MEP, invited Sunday January 28 on franceinfo, while several agricultural unions promise a “siege” of Paris from Monday. For him, the main reason for farmers’ anger is developments “dramatic” of farmers’ income.

“When you see the evolution of farmers’ income, it’s a catastrophe”estimates Pierre Larrouturou. “For 40 years, Europe protected the income of farmers” grace “to milk quotas” set up in 1984, recalls MEP Nouvelle Donne. “I’m not telling you it was perfect,” he recognizes, “but there was 50 times less paperwork and people lived well on their income, he says. The price of milk was fair and there was no subsidy, except in mountain areas.”. Pierre Larrouturou accuses the right of “fucked them up” in 2015. Since then, he continues,“Milk prices are collapsing and farmers are in trouble”.

Pierre Larrouturou recounts a meeting in Brussels with angry farmers, which he summarizes as follows: “All their requests have been on income, they say: ‘I can’t take any more subsidies, what I want is for my work to be recognized'”. And the MEP adds: “If you were paid 300 euros per month and the rest were subsidies, you would have hatred too”. According to him, farmers “just want the dignity of their work to be recognized.”

Farmers “are not stupid”

Pierre Larrouturou cites Spain and its socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as an example: “He blocked the price of energy, he put VAT at 0% on food products, he made a law which protects the income of farmers and puts a tax on the super profits of bankers and oil companies to find money. While we do the opposite.” The MEP Nouvelle Donne denounces in passing the increase of 8.6 to 9.8% in energy prices, announced by the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire.

For him, farmers have no fundamental problem with the European Green Deal, as long as they are given the means to follow it: “We ask them to transform without giving them aid! And what’s more, we put them in competition with countries like Brazil. France is one of the countries where the most pesticides are used in the vineyard. [Les agriculteurs] are not stupid, they are not hostile to limiting pesticides. They simply say: ‘Am I being given help to change our practices? Are we not being put in competition with countries like Brazil which continue with these pesticides or which continue with antibiotics?’