They wanted to make an impression: about 70 farmers from the Rural Coordination gathered Thursday, March 4 in Paris, surrounded by models in overalls hanging from trees, to testify to the unease of a profession that too often sells at a loss, a noted an AFP journalist.
Read also: Farmers demonstrate to maintain pressure on supermarkets
About thirty of these inflatable mannequins were hung from trees on the Esplanade des Invalides, not far from the National Assembly.
Banners were deployed between the trunks, affirming in particular that "
French agriculture is undergoing a huge social plan organized in the greatest silence
".
In the absence of an agricultural fair because of the Covid-19 health crisis, the Rural Coordination, the second agricultural union behind the FNSEA / JA alliance, wanted to be heard.
Yellow chasuble on the back, the activists posed in front of the press one knee on the ground and raised fist, in a cloud of smoke, also yellow.
"
Knee on the ground, that means that those who are still standing think of those who are no longer there
", declares the president of the union Bernard Lannes.
According to the most recent figures from the agricultural social security MSA, 372 suicides of farmers were recorded in 2015, more than one per day.
But this number is greatly reduced, according to the union, for which there are rather two suicides each day and 1,500 bankruptcy filings per year, for lack of remunerative prices.
"
Two colleagues a day, it's unbearable,
" says Dominique Pipet, beret on his head and wooden fork in hand, on which is plastered the message "
Farmed
".
Recently retired, the former cattle breeder from Vienne has never been able to pay himself a salary: “
No salary, no vacation, we were paying our debts!
".
He sold his organic farm to "
two young people
".
“
They need to be courageous because we only endure political betrayals
,” he said.
"
We were put on the scaffold of globalization
", denounces the megaphone the market gardener Sébastien Héraud, also vice-president of the Rural Coordination, who refuses to "
let himself be done by the eco-friendly urban bobos who despise us and want to dictate to us. our conduct
”.
Among the demonstrators, the sovereignist deputy and leader of Debout la France, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, listens.
“
Demobilization is looming over us
,” worries Emmanuelle Chignat, winegrower and breeder in the Dordogne.
“
We try, our efforts are concrete but it is not improving.
You can't see the end of the tunnel
”.
