From the rififi at the Salon de l'Agriculture in Paris.
A commando of around sixty activists from the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion invaded the stand of the National Federation of Farmers' Unions (FNSEA) on Sunday.
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Some sat cross-legged, blocking the way for visitors, while others remained standing, raised points and chanting environmental songs.
Dressed in white coveralls with a logo inspired by the film
Ghost Buster
and tagged “
Lobbytruster
”, the demonstrators were deployed throughout the stand until the intervention of the police who proceeded to evacuate them.
"
Let's demand a REGIME CHANGE for our agricultural production system to deal with the #ClimaticEmergency that awaits us
", wrote the collective on Twitter in addition to a video of their action.
An “ intolerable
” act
, “
a disgrace!
“, reacted the FNSEA in a press release.
The powerful union denounces "
an action whose violence shocked the employees and elected officials present to welcome visitors, including many families on this Sunday
".
And to add that
"this action goes against dialogue, a value that we advocate on a daily basis, in respect of everyone's opinions"
.
Several political personalities supported the FNSEA on Twitter, including the deputy of Tarn (LREM) Marie-Christine Verdier-Jouclas who felt that “
disagreements cannot be settled and will never be settled this way!
Dialogue and consultation are the sure values of democracy
”.
The senator (LR) of Maine-et-Loire Stéphane Piednoir for his part castigated a
“violence against our
#farmers
[…] inadmissible!”
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A “ productivist and deleterious
”
agricultural model
Extinction Rebellion, which claims to belong to the international movement of civil disobedience in the fight against ecological collapse and climate change, criticizes the FNSEA for being the heart of a "
productivist and deleterious agricultural model which concentrates power in the hands of 'food industry, chemical and seed companies who interfere in the development of laws and public policies
'.
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This is not the first time that the environmental movement has attacked the FNSEA.
Last November already, he had made believe in the merger of the services of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food with those of the FNSEA by sending a press release falsely signed by both parties.
