2024-01-22 10:09:20
They are still there. Between Peyssies and Carbonne (Haute-Garonne), on the A64 motorway, near Toulouse, tractors, skips and a wall of straw have occupied the roadway since Thursday evening. The N 124 is partially blocked in the Gers, between interchanges 11 and 13. Other farmers have also planned to demonstrate in Tarascon-sur-Ariège, again. The fed up is great.
“Anger is being expressed, which is not new,” recalls Arnaud Rousseau, president of the FNSEA, on France Inter this Monday morning. Listing the difficulties, and in particular the increase in imports while “we are asked to set fallow land”, he launches this sentence without appeal: “the observation seems shared, so take action!” » Result: “I can tell you that from today and throughout the week and for as long as it is necessary, a certain number of actions will be carried out,” he said.
⚠️A new demonstration will be held tomorrow, Monday January 22, 2024 from 4:00 p.m., on the RN 20, at interchanges 5 (route de Belpech), 6 (Pamiers sud) and 7 (Verniolle) in both directions of traffic
↪️— Prefect of Ariège (@Prefet09) January 21, 2024
As elsewhere in Europe, French farmers are crying out against financial burdens and environmental standards deemed too heavy. Their movement to overturn road signs has spread throughout France, it has not allowed us to move forward. The demonstrations take over. “Agricultural resistance,” banners proclaim.
From the Netherlands to Romania via Poland and Germany, farmers are stepping up actions against the gradual increase in taxation on non-road diesel (NGR) and the European Green Deal. All this against a backdrop of inflation and competition from Ukrainian imports. Even in the United Kingdom, which since Brexit is no longer subject to European standards, discontent is growing: fruit and vegetable producers will demonstrate this Monday in front of Parliament in London to protest against “unfair” purchasing contracts which link them to the main retail brands. They will come with 49 scarecrows, representing the percentage of farmers who are at risk of having to abandon their crops.
“Legitimate anger”
Fearing a conflagration, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal planned to receive this Monday, at 6 p.m., the FNSEA and the Young Farmers’ Union. “The President of the Republic assured us during Covid that delegating our food to others would be madness and yet import levels have never been so high today in France,” criticized this Monday morning, on CNews, Hervé Lapie, secretary general of the FNSEA. We import 40 to 50% of our fruits and vegetables, one in two poultry, 20% of cattle,” he cited as an example. “You have to take courage, something is no longer working”, costs have increased by “20 to 25% over the last three years”. “What we expect from the Prime Minister is real awareness and that he act as quickly as possible on subjects which are very, very well known,” he defended.
“Our farmers are not bandits, polluters, people who torture animals, as we sometimes hear,” Gabriel Attal tried to appease Saturday in the Rhône. But the announcement on Sunday of a further postponement of the Agriculture bill risks reinforcing anger. The text, promised more than a year ago, which was to be presented on Wednesday to the Council of Ministers, will only be presented in “a few weeks” with the aim of being debated in Parliament “in the first half of 2024”, announced Sunday Marc Fesneau, the Minister of Agriculture. The FNSEA expects in particular to “stop the overtransposition” of European standards and “to apply 100%” the EGalim law of 2021, which aims to protect farmers’ remuneration.
“This anger is legitimate, these demands, we must be able to hear them. We are not starting from a blank sheet, we have worked on this,” government spokesperson Prisca Thévenot argued this Monday morning.
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