Pyrénées-Orientales – Mobilization against the importation of products from Morocco: “Let the origin of tomatoes be written in a legible manner so that there is no deception” demand the angry farmers

“Parrate!”, “Buscamos productos de Marruecos”, “Lady tus papeles. Si todo comes from España, basta!” Translate by: “Stop”, “We are looking for products from Morocco”, “Show me your papers. If everything comes from Spain, that’s fine!” Around fifty farmers repeated these injunctions to all the refrigerated trucks arriving from Valencia, Almería or Morocco, which they stopped for several hours to find clearly identifiable Moroccan products. “We are looking to see if the terms “Moroccan products” are written correctly. There, it is very small. Contrary to what the regulations impose. You know, we have already seen Moroccan cherry tomatoes packaged in a 250 gram package here with a Catalan flag and a USAP player on it There’s a problem!”calls out Lucas from a Moroccan truck.

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“Let the rules be the same for everyone! All the producers who are here mention their identity on the trays of their fruits and vegetables, where the products come from, if there has been any treatment… We ask our MEPs that the origin of the tomatoes is written in a legible manner so that there is no deception So that the consumer is well informed Because there must be no confusion between different French and Moroccan productions. There you see, there are hundreds of trucks passing by. We only check one, but there can be anything coming in. Let the fraud services do their job. reviewed.” At the southern toll of the A9 motorway in Perpignan, Vincent, who mainly produces tomatoes in Bouches-du-Rhône, justifies the farmers’ new tour de force.

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New agricultural mobilization in the Pyrénées-Orientales: producers rebel against the “massive” importation of fruits and vegetables from Morocco

These tomatoes aren’t even ripe.

“We don’t empty tomatoes, we unload the pallets properly. We make a wall.” This Thursday, May 16, a few centimeters from him, his counterparts from Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur, Pays de la Loire, Aquitaine, Brittany, Occitanie and of course the Catalan country are busy unloading a heavyweight from Morocco filled with crates of tomatoes intended for French stalls. The driver does not really understand the anger that animates French farmers. These then constitute a chain. Packets overflowing with tomatoes are passed from arm to arm and are, before being redistributed to charity, stored on the ground. Symbolically. “Look at these plastic packaging which should be banned, and these tomatoes… What a shamebitterly deplores Antoine, from Nantes. They haven’t even reached maturity. They continue their development in trucks during the journey between Morocco, Spain and then France. And afterwards, customers will complain that we don’t sell good tomatoes in France.”