They have every intention of being heard… And of being seen.
Thousands of farmers converged on the capital on Wednesday morning to demonstrate against the "constraints" weighing on their sector, in particular the restrictions on the use of pesticides.
Some of them - nearly 500, according to the FNSEA - went there in tractors.
#sauvetonpaysan
👉 live from the Péage d'Ury A6
JA FNSEA 77 and 45, farmers are mobilized to reach Paris @FNSEA @FnseaGBP @JAregionIDF @JA_IDF @JA_IDF @CGB_FR @FNPFruits @FopProducteurs @AGPB_Cerealiers @AGPB_Cerealiers pic.twitter.com/ 10CMCQv5aN
– FRSEA Ile de France (@FrseaIDF) February 8, 2023
The procession must leave at 8 a.m. Porte de Versailles, in the south of Paris, where the International Agricultural Show will be held in less than a month.
They will then go to the Esplanade des Invalides, in the center, not far from the Ministry of Agriculture.
The dispersion is planned for the beginning of the afternoon, via a quay bordering the Seine.
As of Tuesday, the Paris police headquarters predicted traffic "very severely disrupted in a wide area, from the ring road to the seventh and fifteenth arrondissements of Paris", with a gradual return to normal during the day.
“It is strongly recommended that motorists drive around the area for the duration of the event”.
Neonicotinoids, production costs and energy prices
The trigger for the mobilization was the government's decision, on January 23, to stop authorizing neonicotinoid insecticides for the cultivation of sugar beet, following a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union deeming illegal any exemption.
Read alsoPesticides: beet growers protest against the ban on seeds coated with neonicotinoids
But grievances are on the rise: in recent months, farmers have gathered in small groups across the country, here to denounce the rise in their production costs due to soaring energy prices, there to demand to store water to irrigate their crops.
The FNSEA section of the Parisian Grand Bassin, which brings together 12 cereal departments from the north of France and is at the initiative of the event, with the union of beet growers CGB, also affiliated to the FNSEA.
The last big mobilization of its kind dates back to November 27, 2019, when a thousand tractors carried out snail operations on the device.
The demonstrators already denounced a tightening of the rules concerning the spreading of synthetic pesticides with the creation of non-treatment zones (ZNT), strips of a few meters near homes where it is forbidden to use these substances.
