The mobilization of French farmers increased on Wednesday with an increase in blockages to obtain “concrete responses” from the government to their “rage”, fueled Tuesday by the accidental deaths of a breeder and her daughter at a road block.
Margins of mass distribution, fallows, pesticides, environmental standards, administrative authorizations, price of diesel… Farmers and breeders do not all have the same demands, but they share the same unease about their future, torn between the desire to produce and the need to reduce their impact on biodiversity and the climate.
“There is a lot of uneasiness among farmers,” Patricia Dagoré, a farmer in the Basque Country (southwest) and member of the majority union FNSEA, told AFP.
“More and more standards are being imposed on us. But how to apply them? Implementing them all costs money. Today, we all have a rope around our necks, our cash flow is in the red,” she continued during a blockade of the A63 motorway in Bayonne (southwest) on Tuesday evening.
Further north, around 200 tractors invaded the Bordeaux ring road on Wednesday morning, a nerve center between Paris and Spain.
“We intend to stay there until we have concrete answers,” said Serge Bergeon, local head of the FNSEA.
A minute of silence was observed in tribute to the two victims – a breeder in their thirties and her teenage daughter – hit by a car on a dam on Tuesday in Pamiers (Ariège).
“We have the rage to continue, for this family who died. They were like us, passionate… We started, now we continue! » said Yoan Joannic, 20 years old, cereal producer south of Bordeaux.
“Light wick”
After the FNSEA and the Young Farmers (JA) received on Monday, the Rural Coordination, second union, and the Confédération paysanne, third, left the office of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Tuesday evening without calling for the blockades to be lifted. The first judged the exchange “constructive”, while the second spoke of “insufficient” proposals.
Almost a week after starting in the south of France, the movement now affects many important axes of the country, symbol of a general unease among the peasant world, observed elsewhere in Europe.
With the aim of blocking France? “No, not at all, it’s a way to get decisions quickly. Once the fuse is lit, farmers want to go all the way,” replied Arnaud Rousseau, president of the FNSEA, on the France 2 television channel, Wednesday morning.
In the south-east of France, a convoy of around 70 tractors took the “du soleil” motorway, at the Orange toll (south-east), to go back towards the Drôme further north, they said. observed by AFP journalists. This snail operation led to the closure of a portion of the A7 motorway, a crucial axis in this region.
Multiple roundabouts, tolls and motorway ramps have been occupied in recent hours, not to mention snail operations, in many regions.
Reaction from Paris
But how can such deep-rooted problems be resolved as quickly as possible?
Assailed with questions in the National Assembly on Tuesday, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal spoke of measures that could arrive quickly, firstly on the remuneration of farmers by manufacturers and supermarkets.
He also promised to respond to the demand for administrative simplification, with operators, especially breeders, having to complete numerous documents every day. Requests for subsidies and aid after calamities also take too long, farmers complain.
While other major European agricultural countries are experiencing similar movements, the European Commission will bring together agricultural organizations, the agri-food sector, NGOs and experts on Thursday to try to calm things down and convince people of the benefit of reconciling ecological transition and agriculture.