Traffic jams are expected in the Paris region: for the first time in three years, hundreds of tractors are expected in the capital on Wednesday morning to demonstrate against the “limitations” that weigh on agriculture, in particular the restrictions on the use of pesticides.
In the latest marker, the first agricultural union, the FNSEA, announced “almost 500 tractors” and “more than 2,000 farmers”.
Trigger for the mobilization: the government’s decision on January 23 to renounce the authorization of neonicotinoid insecticides for the cultivation of sugar beets, following a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union that considers any exception illegal.
But the complaints are growing: In recent months, farmers have gathered in small groups across the country, here to denounce rising production costs due to high energy prices, there to demand storage of water for irrigation. their crops.
Its last major mobilization dates back to November 27, 2019, when a thousand tractors carried out snail operations on the device. The protesters have already denounced a tightening of the rules regarding the spread of synthetic pesticides with the creation of non-treatment zones (ZNT), strips of a few meters near houses where the use of these substances is prohibited.
“Traffic, very severely disrupted over a large area, from the ring road to the 7th and 15th arrondissements of Paris, will be gradually restored” during the day, the Paris police headquarters warned Tuesday. “Motorists are strongly encouraged to avoid the area extensively for the duration of the event.”
The departure of the procession is scheduled for 8 am Porte de Versailles, in the south of Paris, where the International Agricultural Show will take place in less than a month.
Perched on their tractors or grouped in coaches, the farmers will walk to the Esplanade des Invalides, in the center. The dispersal is planned for the beginning of the afternoon, through a pier that borders the Seine.
“dead ends”
Neonicotinoids, toxic to bees and banned since 2018, had benefited from an exemption for two years. This allowed them to be applied preventively to beetroot seeds to protect them from jaundice, a viral disease carried by aphids.
He chairs the FNSEA section of the Parisian Grand Bassin, which brings together 12 cereal departments in the north of France, and is initiating the event, with the CGB beetroot union, also affiliated with the FNSEA.
The National Federation of the majority agricultural union did the same calling to “mobilize from February 8 in Paris and until February 20 throughout France.”
For Damien Greffin, “at this rate agriculture will disappear.”
The Essonne farmer cites as examples the ban on the insecticide phosmet which “compromises” the cultivation of cherries, or – soon – a herbicide for endives.
In more general terms, according to the FNSEA, “farmers today find themselves with regulatory limitations of all kinds that hinder innovative projects in the territories (irrigation, livestock construction, etc.)”
“Now they are facing blind alleys of solutions to health threats to crops or to predation,” the organization also reproaches, in a press release, referring to the bans on pesticides and wolf attacks on herds.
Second representative union, the Rural Coordination said in a tweet that it had offered the FNSEA Grand Bassin Parisien to join the demonstration and was rejected.
As for the Confédération paysanne, the third union that mobilized on Tuesday against the pension reform, deplored in a press release that “others” are demonstrating “to continue using neonicotinoids and reject any ecological progress.”
Source: BFM TV
