Farmers on board at least 200 tractors invaded the Bordeaux ring road early this Wednesday, a nerve center between Paris and Spain, blocking traffic to express their "
rage
", AFP noted.
Before 6 a.m., demonstrators blocked the lanes in Artigues-près-Bordeaux in the east of the city, near the interchange with the A89/N89 (direction of Clermont-Ferrand), cutting off traffic. in both ways.
The farmers nevertheless left one of the three lanes free, in each direction, in order to allow emergency services to pass.
“
The price of diesel, all the taxes, and even compared to future generations, it doesn't make you want to settle down... My grandparents, my parents were farmers, but that doesn't make you want to take the rest
,” Yoan Joannic, 20, a farmer in the south of Gironde, told AFP.
“We started, now we continue!”
Leaving at one o'clock in the morning from his farm, located between Langon and Casteljaloux (Lot-et-Garonne), this young cereal producer said he was mourned by the deaths of a breeder and her daughter hit by a car on a dam Tuesday in Pamiers (Ariège).
“
We have the rage to continue, for this family who died.
Listening to the people, they were like us, they were passionate.
We started, now we continue!
", he said.
“
Angry agriculture
,” read one of the banners, while another proclaimed: “
Proud to feed you
.”
The Bordeaux ring road, inevitable on the Paris-Spain motorway and regularly congested during rush hours, is used by 85,000 to 140,000 vehicles per day, including 6,000 to 18,000 heavy goods vehicles.
Started last Thursday in Occitania with a motorway blockade which continues, the movement, supported by the country's first union (FNSEA), is spreading in the South-West and throughout France.
The mobilization should continue to put pressure on the government, which has started to receive representatives of the profession.
Fallow, pesticides, environmental standards, administrative authorizations, diesel prices... Despite very diverse demands, French farmers and breeders share the same unease about their future, torn between their desire to produce and export, and the necessity to integrate environmental constraints to reduce their impact on biodiversity and the climate.