Agricultural union leaders change strategy after four days of blockages.
“After consultations, in view of everything that had been announced, we must change our mode of action.
We call on our networks to suspend the blockages and enter into a new form of mobilization,” launched Arnaud Gaillot, president of the Young Farmers, during a press conference held this Thursday alongside his FNSEA counterpart, Arnaud Rousseau.
The latter states straight away: “The movement does not stop, it is transformed.
» The two unions hope that the Agricultural Show will be “the strong marker of the change in the functioning of the government” and call for “transforming the test”.
“By June we will not hesitate to re-enter a national movement,” warns the president of the JA.
The peasants are waiting for “something written”
The two presidents reacted in particular to new announcements from Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who had not convinced the farmers during his first two speeches on the subject.
“(Gabriel Attal’s) exercise on Friday was unsuccessful, incomplete,” judged Arnaud Rousseau.
We were heard on a certain number of points with tangible progress.
But a certain number of things are not there.
»
The leader of the FNSEA explained that farmers were waiting for “something written and concrete from the government”.
“Within 15 days, we need to have the first elements of a legal text and then, we need concrete elements before the month of June,” he adds before warning the government: “If we realizes that it was all just a trick, the effect will be catastrophic.
»
The president of the FNSEA also attacked the subject of Europe, which he considers “technocratic”: “we do not understand it”.
“The position on Mercosur is firm but it must be held by France,” he added about this free trade agreement to which the French state is opposed.
“Our objective was to tell the French government and Brussels that we needed to change the software,” explained Arnaud Rousseau in the preamble.
And the president of the FNSEA recalled the holding, next June, of the European elections.