“So that it doesn’t happen again“: the FDSEA 60 union is organizing a rally this Wednesday, October 26 at 11 a.m. in front of the premises of the French Office for Biodiversity in Beauvais. They are establishing a “strong bond“between the suicide of a farmer from the Picardy plateau, two weeks earlier, and his summons to the services of the OFB following a check in June.
Against the “presumption of guilt”
The gathering takes place this Wednesday, October 26, because “the deceased farmer had to report to the OFB that day“, tells France Bleu Picardie Luc Smessaert, vice-president of the FNSEA from Oise. “There is a complete presumption of guilt towards the farmers at each check”, he explains. On June 1, the services of the OFB went to the farm of this farmer near Saint-Just-en-Chaussée, accused of having emptied his sprayer in a path adjoining one of his plots. . “They got it wrongaccuses Luc Smessaert. The control went well, but added to the fuel crisis, the ongoing sowing, the climate crisis… it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.“
According to Luc Smessaert, relatives of the 53-year-old farmer found the summons from the OFB on his desk after his death: “the link is strong, and we want to say stop to this presumption of complete guilt.“The rally is organized with the agreement of the relatives of this farmer. The demonstrators will symbolically hand over the death certificate of the cereal farmer to the services of the OFB, before a silent walk to the prefecture of the Oise.