Farmers are continuing new actions this Tuesday, November 26, 2024, against the Mercosur free trade treaty, against a backdrop of tensions between unions. After symbolic actions – fires of anger, rallies – claimed in 85 departments last week, the majority FNSEA-JA alliance plans to continue its mobilization until Thursday evening.
« Simplifions, simplifions, simplifions »insisted the president of the FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau, on France 2 this Tuesday morning calling in particular to reduce administrative procedures for farmers. “If we want to renew the generations, we have to simplify their daily lives, farmers can no longer put up with papers. »
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“Breaking, burning, threatening, this is not a solution”
In a tense climate a few weeks before their professional elections, the unions returned to the field in mid-November in dispersed order. Less than a year after a historic mobilization and after a difficult summer marked by poor harvests and animal diseases, farmers believe they have not obtained enough concrete progress.
For its part, Rural Coordination, the second agricultural union, plans « d’amplifier » its mobilization beyond the South-West where its actions have so far been concentrated: filter dams, blockade of the port of Bordeaux, ransacking of an OFB office in the Creuse.
The president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, wanted to distinguish himself from the Rural Coordination. “We have a very clear message: no attacks on property or people. We consider that breaking, burning, threatening is not a solution”deplores the union boss, who was booed in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne) by members of the Rural Coordination during his visit to the National Congress of Vegetable Producers on Friday.
Tense climate ahead of the elections of the departmental chambers of agriculture
“This kind of excess is not acceptable”judges the president of the FNSEA, who had to leave under police escort at the request of the prefect. “I left in extremely dangerous and borderline conditions. We were on the verge of an accident”he denounced. “Some people think that apart from chaos, radicalism, threats, there is no future. This is not our point of view. »
This confrontation comes a few weeks before the vote aimed at electing the departmental chambers of agriculture. The Rural Coordination, which currently chairs three, including that of Lot-et-Garonne for two decades, hopes to break the hegemony of the FNSEA-JA alliance and delight “15 to 20 rooms” additional.
The president of the FNSEA criticizes Véronique Le Floc'h, national president of Rural Coordination, for not having condemned this type of act.
“We hold 95% of the departments”boasted Arnaud Rousseau. “That they campaign is quite normal. On the other hand, Véronique Le Floc'h is not threatened every time she comes to an FNSEA department”he declared.
Rural Coordination particularly criticizes Arnaud Rousseau, also chairman of the board of directors of the Avril group, French leader in vegetable oils and proteins, for having acquired at the beginning of October, in Brazil, a company specializing in the manufacture of castor oil, while he leads the revolt against a free trade agreement.
