Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that he had
“never thought of initiating”
an invitation to the radical environmentalist collective Earth Uprisings for a major debate on the first day of the Agricultural Show, news which had provoked the anger of farmers and triggered a boycott of the majority union.
“I completely deny this information. Totally. I never thought of initiating such an invitation. And you are speaking to the President of the Republic who has taken on the responsibility of having the dissolution of the Earth Uprising passed through the Council of Ministers
,” the French president declared to journalists.
“This whole story made me angry to a point that you cannot imagine (...) So, that’s nonsense
. ”
Also read: “Emmanuel Macron: order, counter-order, disorder”
“There was no invitation”
Pressed by journalists since the collective had been cited among others in a call from the Élysée with the press, he insisted:
“There was no invitation.”
“There was an error made when this group was cited, but it is false. There was a desire to organize a debate with all the stakeholders, with distributors, with mass distribution, with the agri-food industries and with the organizations which are on the councils, that is to say the organizations which are well established, who are peaceful and who can be found in Ecophyto councils, etc..”
, he said, citing WWF and Greenpeace.
“Organizations that threaten, that destroy: never
,” said Emmanuel Macron.