Convoys of farmers left on Sunday to try to block the roads surrounding Paris, at the request of the Rural Coordination, illustrating the concern of a sector whose representatives will be received on January 13 in Matignon. Prime Minister François Bayrou will meet that day with the Peasant Confederation, the Rural Coordination, the FNSEA and the Young Farmers, Matignon announced on Friday.
A meeting too late for the Rural Coordination, France’s second largest agricultural union, which maintained its mobilization on Sunday, said Patrick Legras, spokesperson for the organization. “We will arrive at the outskirts of Paris in the afternoon (…), we are on our way,” Edouard Legras, president of the Loir-et-Cher Rural Coordination, told BFM TV from the cabin. of your tractor.
The angry farmers, recognizable by their yellow caps, threaten to block access to the capital on this day of intense traffic linked to the return of the Christmas holidays. The police headquarters of Paris and Val-de-Marne banned “any undeclared gathering” in the center of Paris and near the Rungis market from 6:00 p.m. on Sunday until noon on Monday.
As the launch of the campaign for the elections to the agricultural chambers approaches
The agricultural world demands the application of measures whose application is slowed by the political instability caused by the dissolution of the National Assembly and then the censorship of Michel Barnier’s government. Among the unions’ demands are an end to excessive transposition of standards and better control of imports. “They don’t even understand the misery and disorder that farmers find themselves in right now,” said Amélie Rebière, vice-president of Coordination, on BFM TV.
Farmers are also concerned about the signing of Mercosur, a free trade agreement between the European Union and five Latin American countries, including Brazil and Argentina. France opposes the current terms of this text, which must be ratified before entering into force. The project is “unacceptable as it is,” declared President Emmanuel Macron, who expressed reservations about the impact on French agriculture and the environment. More than a dozen farmers from the Rural Coordination, on foot, gathered in the Plaza del Brasil, in Paris.
The agricultural mobilization in France comes as the launch of the official campaign for the elections to the agricultural chambers approaches on Tuesday. The vote, scheduled for the second half of January, will outline the new balance of power between the unions.
Source: BFM TV
