“We cannot do publicity on the backs of farmers”, denounces Marie Toussaint

The head of the Ecologists list for the European elections reacted to the tense arrival of the Head of State at the Agricultural Show this Saturday morning. Hours opposed demonstrators and police.

After Emmanuel Macron’s arrival under high tension on Saturday February 24 at the Agricultural Show, the head of the Ecologists list for the European elections, Marie Toussaint, denounces the management of the farmers’ crisis by the President of the Republic: “We can’t do publicity on the backs of farmers”she declares on franceinfo.

“The Agricultural Show must be held peacefully”, launched Emmanuel Macron as clashes broke out between demonstrators and the police in the morning before the opening of the Salon. Dozens of demonstrators forced a gate then reached the main pavilion, Porte de Versailles, where clashes occurred with the security service, before the deployment of CRS.

“It no longer has legitimacy”

For Marie Toussaint, seeing Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the Salon de l’agriculture heckled is “extremely worrying”because this does not “denotes not only the uneasiness of farmers, but also a democratic impasse, at least in the model developed by the President of the Republic”. She believes that the Head of State, by visiting the Salon, must try to “discuss” and of “to create the dialogue that he prides himself on wanting to create.”

“We have an extremely deep agricultural malaise and no structuring response. On the contrary, we have a President of the Republic who tries to be interesting by planning debates, like a rude child around the table.”

Marie Toussaint

at franceinfo

For Marie Toussaint, “the democratic impasse” comes from the fact that “this President of the Republic has never stopped stepping on the stakeholders, on social dialogue, on the citizen conventions that he himself put in place. So, after a while, he does not has more legitimacy to bring everyone around the table. It’s dramatic and I’m very worried about our country.”