Despite the high tensions upon his arrival, Emmanuel Macron met and debated on Saturday morning with farmers and representatives of the various trade union organizations at the Salon de la profession, highlighting his desire for “dialogue”.
Leaning on a high bar table, suit jacket fallen off, the president collected the grievances of the farmers grouped around him, each wearing a distinctive sign of their union organization: yellow caps, green or red caps.
The head of state wants to try to calm the anger that was expressed earlier in the morning at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center and also manage to hold a debate, after having canceled the big exchange, a hoped-for time.
This debate was abandoned after the anger aroused among agricultural unions by the invitation of the environmentalist collective Les Soulèvements de la terre.
“
I want to speak to everyone, simply, everyone whistles (...) we are here to talk
,” said the head of state, surrounded by his ministers Marc Fesneau and Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
“
I am telling you that the work is done on the ground, we have taken the copies, we are in the process of making all the simplification
,” he declared in front of representatives of three unions, FNSEA, Jeunes farmers and Rural Coordination, in particular.
“I
always prefer dialogue to confrontation (...) Confrontation produces nothing,
” asserted the head of state.
Adding: “
the show must go well because for your colleagues, it is sometimes months, even years of work.
They came up with their animals, with their work to show it
.”
Also read: Anger of farmers: how far will rural coordination go?
“Macron resignation”
One of the president's interlocutors particularly wanted to address the theme of suicide, specifying that he himself “
almost took action
” in August.
Noting the questions on a sheet of paper, sometimes trying with difficulty to answer between the outbursts of voice and protests, the president was notably questioned pell-mell on the consequences of the war in Ukraine, administrative simplification, ecology experienced as " punitive" by certain farmers or even the remuneration of farmers.
The president arrived around 8 a.m. at the Salon to meet with trade unions, after several weeks of agricultural crisis.
At the same time, demonstrators, some carrying whistles, rushed into the main entrance where clashes occurred with the security service.
“
Macron resign
” and “
give him back
”, shouted the demonstrators inside.
The CRS were forced to intervene to try to restore calm, given the confusion and tension.