After Mercosur, “impediments” and “norms”: in a climate of tension, a few weeks before their professional elections, farmers are preparing to enter a second week of mobilization, still dispersed but determined to maintain pressure on the government .
Less than a year after a historic mobilization and after a “rotten summer” marked by poor harvests and an outbreak of emerging animal diseases, agricultural unions pulled out the tractors, believing they had not made enough concrete progress in the field.
After a first week of mobilization against the free trade agreement that the European Union (EU) is negotiating with the Latin American countries of Mercosur, the actions should be expanded to denounce the “impediments” to production denounced by the majority alliance FNSEA -Young Farmers (JA). ) as well as its competitor Rural Coordination (CR), the second largest agricultural union.
In front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg
After the symbolic actions claimed in 85 departments, the actions will be directed, for example, to the prefectures, to the water agencies or to the offices of the French Biodiversity Office (OFB). “Almost all departments plan to take action in the coming days,” the JA warned.
The protesters will defend, in particular, the return of acetamiprid, an insecticide from the neonicotinoid family, demanded by producers of hazelnuts and sugar beets. Harmful to pollinators, it is prohibited in France but is used in other European Union countries.
They also demand greater access to water and the simplification of millefeuille to French and European standards, considering that the efforts made by the government are still insufficient.
The Rural Coordination, which has multiplied its interventions in recent days, plans to “amplify” its mobilization beyond the southwest, where its actions have been concentrated in recent days.
After a filter on the Spanish border, the blockade of the commercial port of Bordeaux or a muscular intrusion in an OFB office, of which it demands the “dissolution”, the union plans a demonstration on Tuesday before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, but also a trench cleaning operation in the High Alps and the continued blockade of distributors’ purchasing centers.
Opposed to free trade for decades, the Peasant Confederation, heir to the peasant struggles against globalization, continues its mobilizations against Mercosur and “for the defense of peasant incomes” and the agroecological transition. He foresees, in particular, a mobilization in a supermarket in Essonne this Monday and an anti-Mercosur action in the Dordogne this Tuesday.
A debate in the Assembly this Tuesday
On Friday, a sudden tension between the FNSEA and the Rural Coordination, including around fifty members from its stronghold of Lot-et-Garonne, interrupted a trip by Arnaud Rousseau to Agen. In an electrifying atmosphere, the yellow-hatted activists booed the FNSEA chief and threatened to prevent him from leaving, before allowing him to return to his vehicle under police escort.
This confrontation occurs a few weeks before the vote to elect the departmental chambers of agriculture. The Rural Coordination, which currently presides over three, including that of Lot-et-Garonne for two decades, hopes to break the hegemony of the FNSEA-JA alliance and capture “15 to 20 additional rooms.”
In this climate of tension, where political observers monitor the risk of overbidding, the government assures that France is making progress in building a blocking minority in the EU-Mercosur agreement: after Italy, Poland expressed its rejection on Friday.
A debate followed by a vote on this free trade agreement, which France rejects as it stands, is scheduled for Tuesday, November 26, in the National Assembly. And French Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard promised to address the issue of banned pesticides and make new announcements in the coming days on “simplification.”
Source: BFM TV
