The authorities are banning “any undeclared gathering” from Sunday 6 p.m. in the center of Paris and the Rungis market sector while the agricultural union Coordination Rurale is calling for demonstrations “in Paris” and “everywhere in France”.
The police headquarters of Paris and that of Val-de-Marne prohibit undeclared gatherings from Sunday 6 p.m. to Monday noon, “considering the calls to demonstrate on January 5, 2025 launched by an agricultural union with a view to blockade the capital and to block the Rungis market of national interest”, according to two decrees published this Friday. A large area of central Paris including the Élysée and the National Assembly, and an area including the Rungis market and the A6B are affected.
The “security system” put in place “aims to prevent all damage and violence and all violent actions,” the Paris police headquarters told Le Parisien. According to a police source at AFP, “internal contradictions and with other unions nevertheless reduce the risks of large-scale mobilization”.
This Saturday, the Rural Coordination (CR) once again maintained, as the day before, its call to reach the capital by car or tractor from Sunday afternoon to demonstrate on Monday. This Friday, Matignon indicated that the Prime Minister would receive the agricultural unions “in turn” on January 13, a date considered too distant by the second agricultural union, behind the FNSEA.
“The plans are maintained as planned and kept confidential so that these actions can take place as planned,” Véronique Le Floc’h, president of the CR, told AFP. “Several dozen tractors are already scattered, ready to position themselves,” according to her. “We will be in Paris on Sunday evening. We have a meeting point in 91 (Essonne, Editor's note), another in 27 (Eure, Editor's note) and another which is in the process of being defined,” said Patrick Legras, spokesperson for the CR, who expects the presence of “several hundred farmers from Sunday”.
The call to demonstrate was relayed at the end of December, a few days before the official launch of the campaign for the elections to the chambers of agriculture, which begins on January 7 and will determine the new balance of power between agricultural unions.
