In the Pyrénées-Orientales, around 300 farmers and around a hundred tractors converged this Friday morning, at the call of the FDSEA and Young Farmers, towards the toll of the A9 motorway, Perpignan Sud, to continue the blockade started Thursday evening , by surprise.
And the tension is palpable as the exasperation is great.
As in other departments, the demands relate to the avalanche of standards, the difficulty of the markets, the prices of mass distribution, the absence of responses from the State... Although he is not used to demonstrations, Jean -Roger Calvet, winemaker in Maury, wanted to be there.
“What pushed me to come is the question of controls on our farms, when we receive the air and border police, they are at home, like cowboys and that is not normal he says.
His colleague Hervé Bizeul, a renowned winemaker in the department, said nothing else in a notable interview given to our colleagues at Vitisphère a few days ago.
But there is an additional layer in the Pyrénées-Orientales: the drought “which will kill everyone” announced David Drilles, president of the winegrowers’ union.
The demonstration split into several pieces to simultaneously block several points in the city, including the Saint-Charles market here.
LP/Yann Kerveno
“Bring water from the Rhône”
All production is concerned, arboriculture and market gardening which watches the season approach without the lakes filling up and without the mountain, the usual water tower of the plain, turning white in the distance.
“We will have to bring water from the Rhône to here, because even if the State gives us the right to build hill reservoirs we will not be able to count on the rain to fill them” specified another winegrower, Laurent Girbau of Passed.
By mid-morning, the tractors were scattered to carry the blockage to different points of the city.
It was difficult to reach the Porte d'Espagne shopping center, in the mountains the breeders of Cerdagne blocked access to Andorra, tractors entered the highway, the Saint-Charles market, the main gateway for Moroccan fruits and vegetables in France, was blocked.
The Peasant Confederation, for its part, concentrated its troops at the Boulou tollbooth.