Farmers: the FNSEA “maintains its actions”, the government promises “answers in the coming days”

2024-01-23 00:06:16

The mobilization is gaining ground. The president of the FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau indicated this Monday evening that there would be “no lifting of the actions” carried out by farmers in France to express their dismay, as long as there were “no concrete decisions » from the executive, Monday after an interview with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

“We need very concrete actions and therefore what we said to the Prime Minister is that as long as there are no concrete decisions (…) there will be no lifting actions carried out on the ground,” Arnaud Rousseau declared to journalists, assuring that the agricultural world “will not be satisfied with measuring sticks.”

“We expect the Prime Minister to be able to make a certain number of declarations during the week that will move the lines significantly,” he said.

For his part, the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, promised to provide “concrete answers in the coming days”. “There is a need to reaffirm a form of trust which must be translated into action,” he told the press.

“The Prime Minister has clearly stated his desire (…) to move quickly, within the week for a certain number of first announcements,” the minister further declared. Among the most urgent subjects are that of “commercial negotiations” on food prices, that of the “crises going through a certain number of sectors” and certain subjects in terms of “simplification”, he added.

Fear of a conflagration

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 ban 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.

Gabriel Attal had already promised on Saturday to “make life easier” for farmers by reducing “red tape”. 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. Farmers also dumped tires on the railway tracks at the entrance to Agen station, where traffic has been blocked since around 6:15 p.m. And the movement could spread: the Young Farmers of Oise announced to AFP a blockage of the A16 motorway early Tuesday afternoon near Beauvais.

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.