Farmers moved closer to Paris this Friday by blocking certain major roads in the Ile-de-France region.
With one objective in mind: to put pressure on the government before the long-awaited announcements from Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
According to Damien Greffin, member of the FNSEA office and farmer in Essonne,
“five blockade points located a few dozen kilometers from Paris”
were installed in the afternoon.
And to clarify that it was not a question
of “free toll operations but of blockages and snail operations”.
Demonstrations which were planned to last
“until midnight, or even longer if farmers consider the government announcements insufficient”.
Among the places concerned is the Saint-Arnoult toll, on the A10-A11, a major road linking the west and south-west of the country to Paris.
Several hundred tractors crossed the roadway early in the afternoon, in both directions of traffic.
“We are ready to go to Paris to show the executive that we are determined to defend our profession.
We have filled up with gasoline, we are waiting for the green light from our authorities
, comments Benoît, a cereal farmer who came with his tractor displaying two green and white flags, in the colors of the FNSEA.
Read alsoFarmers: this anger that the FNSEA is struggling to channel
Other dams have emerged, such as on the A6, south of the capital, at Villabé-Auberneau or on the A13, an axis which leads to Normandy, at the Buchelay tollbooth.
But also on the A16, north of Paris, or on the A1, in Oise, where the road had been blocked from the morning at the Senlis tollbooth.
“On the A16, there were at least 80 tractors and more than 200 on the Senlis blockade, it’s very impressive,”
comment Luc Smessaert and Régis Desrumaux, breeders and FNSEA managers in Oise.
It has been a long time since we have seen such a mobilization
.
There is conviviality, but a lot of determination and dignity in our fight to simply be able to live from our work.
We need to stop considering ourselves as delinquents
Emmanuel Hyest, cereal grower
Many farmers left their farms to join the movement: breeders, cereal growers, wine growers, market gardeners and arborists.
Among them, farmers who had not demonstrated for a long time, including senior officials of professional organizations used to discussing with those in power.
This is the case in Eure, on the A13, next to Gaillon.
Emmanuel Hyest, cereal grower and president of the National Federation of Safer (land development companies and rural establishments) is one of them.
“It’s been years since I demonstrated and took out my tractor,”
he says.
Administrative complexities are becoming more and more numerous.
And there are too many untimely controls, particularly environmental ones, from the French Biodiversity Office.
We need to stop seeing ourselves as delinquents.
We take turns day and night.
This Friday evening, we will completely close traffic.
Until now, we let vehicles pass in the morning and evening.”
Request for resignation from Marc Fesneau
Further south, blockades gave rise to impressive images: 400 kilometers were preventively closed to traffic by the authorities on the A7 and A9, only convoys of tractors being authorized to drive on the tracks.
In Aude, not far from a dam on the A9, demonstrators partly set fire to the buildings of the agricultural social mutuality (MSA), the equivalent for farmers of primary health insurance funds for employees to the general regime.
Fortunately, the buildings had been evacuated in anticipation of this demonstration.
Also read Angry farmers: what we know about the fire in a Mutualité sociale agricole building in Narbonne
In Aveyron, around forty tractors and livestock trucks from the Young Farmers and the FNSEA slowed down traffic, with a snail-like operation on the A75.
A convoy which took the Millau Viaduct in the afternoon.
“Unfortunately, this is not the last time we demonstrate
,” says Rémi Agrinier, a young sheep farmer, behind the wheel of his tractor after crossing the bridge.
In the south of the department, a makeshift camp has been set up for four days by farmers who are blocking national road 88, near Tauriac-de-Naucelle, near Tarn.
Among the slogans displayed on the front buckets of the tractors, we could read:
“Little ones we dream, big ones die”
,
“ZAD, agricultural zone determined farmers”
.
Some wrote, in memory of their colleague and his daughter, accidentally killed on the Pamiers dam on Tuesday:
“Died because they wanted to live with dignity from their profession.
» Finally, on numerous blockages, the farmers are demanding the departure of the Minister of Agriculture, whom they do not consider up to the situation:
“Fesneau resignation”,
we can read here and there
.
“We block with bales of straw, tractors and fodder trays, we sleep in cattle trucks and we take turns day and night to hold out for the long term
,” warns Mathilde of the JA.