The farmers are back on track. As announced at the end of December, the Rural Coordination (CR), the second largest agricultural union, is calling on its members to go to Paris. Among the reasons, the date considered “much too late” – January 13 – of the meeting set by the services of Prime Minister François Bayrou for union officials. The CR also calls for “an end to the over-transposition of European rules in France” and for controls carried out on farms to be “reoriented” towards imports and “labeling problems”.
How do they plan to act this time? At the moment, very little information is filtering out. The main question concerns the blocking of Paris. If this is very likely from this Monday, it is not impossible that it will start this Sunday evening. On the one hand, the general secretary of the CR Christian Convers affirmed this Sunday at the beginning of the afternoon in Le Parisien – just as another official told us this Saturday morning – that there “will be no blockade” this Sunday evening and that the tractors will simply “approach Paris”.
On the other hand, the president of the CR Véronique Le Floc'h advanced on RMC this Sunday morning wanting to “encircle” Paris without giving details on the deadlines. Shortly after on Sud Radio, she recommended Ile-de-France vacationers returning to the region this Sunday to plan an early return. Questioned about this difference in tone by Le Parisien, Véronique Le Floc'h preferred to remain discreet so as not to be “cornered by law enforcement”, but assured that she did not want to “prevent people from returning home”.
“We are moving forward blindly”
Are we to understand that there will be no action this Sunday evening? That these will be relatively flexible filter dams, for example at the Saint-Arnoult toll (Yvelines)? No official response on this subject. “We are moving forward blindly. We will do everything to disturb our fellow citizens as little as possible,” says a source within the union who calls on the population to “join” them. “We understood that they supported us, if they are blocked it will be more by the police than us”, supports Véronique Le Floc’h.
For the rest of the mobilization, those in charge of the CR are once again deliberately maintaining vagueness. But, there will be “from tomorrow (Monday) “ tractors in Paris, according to the union. With a key word: “respect for people and property”, assures Véronique Le Floc’h. “We don't have any small machines, but the goal remains to seek answers that we are not given,” she adds.
Concretely, the CR has organized itself “so that the tractors travel as little as possible”, assured this Sunday afternoon Amélie Rebière, present for the union in Corrèze on France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine. “These are mainly tractors which will come from Île-de-France, from neighboring departments. But the Limousins will come as reinforcements, by train, by bus or by car,” she declared. Farmers from other departments such as Tarn-et-Garonne are also expected in Paris, notes France 3 Occitanie.
A certain “benevolence” from the authorities
Opposite, the police are preparing. On Saturday, a source within the Ministry of the Interior told us that instructions had been given to maintain “benevolence provided that there are neither lasting blockages nor violence”. At the same time, the Paris police headquarters and the Val-de-Marne prefecture banned undeclared gatherings from Sunday 6 p.m. to Monday noon in the center of Paris and around the Rungis market.
The Paris police headquarters has put in place a “security system” aimed at “preventing any damage and violence” and “any harsh action”, it told us on Saturday at the start of the afternoon without giving more details. details. Faced with a mobilization that could last several days.
