“Delighted, we come from Tarn-et-Garonne.” Slightly ahead of schedule, farmers from the South-West of France arrived shortly before 6 p.m. in Orveau, the small village in Essonne where the Rural Coordination arranged to meet its troops. Gathered under a hangar under construction, the Yellow Hats remain discreet about the actions they will carry out. “We wait until everyone is there, we don't decide anything alone,” one of them warns the journalists who question him.
In accordance with the announcements made a few hours earlier, the farmers gathered in Orveau confirmed three targets: “the Rungis market in Val-de-Marne, the purchasing centers around Paris and the Saint-Arnoult toll in Yvelines” . “What’s next? You'll see, mischievously says pig breeder Pierre-Guillaume Mercadal, spokesperson for the Tarn-et-Garonne Rural Coordination. We didn't do 600 miles to leave in two hours. »
Lit by a fire of pallets, the breeder hammers out his slogan. “We are calling for the establishment of a French agricultural exception,” he argues. There is indeed a French cultural exception for culture. We want the same thing for agriculture. What we are asking for are free measures that cost the State nothing. We don't want bonuses, we want prices and to be able to work peacefully. »
The Secretary General of Rural Coordination, Christian Convers, is expected on site in the early evening. Nothing will be announced before his arrival in the small village of 150 souls.
