The farmers of the majority agricultural union, the National Federation of Farmers' Unions (FNSEA) and its ally the Young Farmers (JA) carried out, on Monday afternoon, their threat to
"lay siege to Paris"
.
Eight blockage points were identified on the highways all around the capital, within a radius of a few dozen kilometers.
To the east of Paris, on the A5 towards Troyes, around fifty tractors set up a makeshift camp near Ourdy and blocked traffic in both directions.
“We have planned all the arrangements to last at least four days of food and drinks with barnums to cook.
There is a trailer with straw for those sleeping on site.
We do guard tours,”
Cyrille Milard explained on Monday.
Like many, the cereal grower, president of the FDSEA, departmental branch of the FNSEA in Seine-et-Marne, was watching in the evening for “
the words of Arnaud Rousseau at the exit of Matignon”
.
The boss of the FNSEA and his JA alter ego, Arnaud Gaillot, were in fact received by the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, in the presence of the Ministers of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, and of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu.
The opportunity for an update after the first ten announcements from the Prime Minister, last Friday in Haute-Garonne, deemed insufficient by the farmers.
“I am going to this meeting with the support of all the farmers who are on the dams
,” the president of the FNSEA
announced to Le
Figaro .
I am going to ask the Prime Minister for explanations: to know what he means by “software change” and when he says he wants to put “agriculture above all else”
.
I hope that behind these words, there are very concrete measures in terms of prices, particularly on the EGalim law, the competitiveness of our companies and the relaxation of the green pact in Brussels.
Gabriel Attal played the Occitanie card but I will remind him that it is not France.
There are many other claims which concern other territories and other productions.
What we are asking for as a priority is the repeal of the BCAE8 measure of the Brussels Green Deal.
It forces us to fallow 4% more land this year
Emmanuel Hyest, cereal grower in Eure
On the blocking points, the farmers did not expect much from this meeting with the tenant of Matignon, nor from his general policy speech to the Assembly scheduled for this Tuesday afternoon.
The A13 motorway, which links Normandy to Paris, is now blocked in both directions around 60 km from the capital, towards the Buchelay toll station in Yvelines.
“What we are asking for as a priority is the repeal of the BCAE8 measure of the Brussels Green Deal.
It forces us to fallow 4% additional land this year
, explains Emmanuel Hyest, a cereal grower in Eure, who is one of the blockade farmers who have been taking turns for several days already.
This is contrary to the objective of national food sovereignty and it prevents us from carrying out our profession.
But this cannot be decided in Paris.
We are expecting a lot from Emmanuel Macron's trip to Brussels this Thursday at the Council of Europe
,” adds the man who is also president of the National Federation of Safer (Land Development and Rural Establishment Companies).
It is for this reason that the farmers have planned to hold their blockades for at least four days.
“We work in shifts, the objective is to last at least four days,”
points out Emmanuel Hyest.
Concerning the French specificity of controls, we can no longer stand to have controls from the administration: on average once or twice a year, for a classic structure, and at least two annual visits in organic.
We feel like delinquents.”
For their part, the most virulent in this national conflict, the Lot-et-Garonne farmers of the Rural Coordination (CR), are expected Tuesday evening in Rungis.
Tuesday is traditionally the day when the international market, particularly the Tide Pavilion, resumes.
“Between 90 and 110 tractors left Agen Monday morning at 9 a.m.
They picked up people in Bergerac, Marmande and Limoges where they slept,
describes Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, president of the chamber of agriculture in Agen from where he supervises the situation.
They will leave Tuesday morning via Poitiers, and Indre-et-Loire, to their destination.
We should have 150 tractors, vans, individual cars, or 600 to 700 people to block Rungis.
If we die, the French will no longer have anything to eat.
This is what risks happening with this technostructure disconnected from the field which tells us how to do it when they have often never seen a cow or put on boots to go into a plowed field.
We must strengthen the movement, come what may!
Our watchword is “respect us”, “let us work””
.
Those who are already on the Ile-de-France roadblocks fear for the continuation of the movement.
“We are afraid of the excesses of some of the CR who are detrimental to the cause
,” warns Cyrille Milard.
For the moment, the peasant jacquerie has never been so popular according to opinion institutes with 9 out of 10 French people supporting this movement.
Chronology
February 8, 2023
600 tractors at Les Invalides against “agricultural decline”, caused by restrictions on the use of pesticides, according to the demonstrators.
November 27, 2019
More than a thousand farmers are carrying out a “snail operation” on the Paris ring road to protest against their selling prices, which they consider too low, and the stranglehold of regulations.
September 3, 2015
More than 1,500 tractors flock to the Place de la Nation in Paris to express the dismay of the peasant world and demand aid in the face of the constant fall in their income.
November 21, 2013
Ile-de-France farmers are blocking, with around a hundred tractors, several roads leading to Paris.
They are protesting against the redistribution of European aid to cereal growers.
April 27, 2010
More than 1,500 tractors, mainly cereal growers, parade through Paris to question the President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, about the drop in their income and their fears for the future of the CAP.