(Paris) Farmers from the Rural Coordination (CR), France's second largest agricultural union, set out from different regions towards Paris, where they intend to express their anger this week but do not plan significant action Sunday evening.
Posted at 3:13 p.m.
“We are on the way, by tractor, but for the moment nothing is happening, because gendarmes are stationed far from Paris on the roads to wait for us,” Patrick Legras, spokesperson for the union, told AFP.
The movement has planned several meeting points in the Paris region for demonstrators recognizable by their yellow caps, on the routes converging from the west, north, east and south towards Paris.
“There is no significant development in our movement to expect this Sunday, before tomorrow” Monday, assured Mr. Legras, himself on the way.
“Voluntarily, we have divided the organization of this day and the days to come between only five people,” indicated the president of the movement Véronique Le Floc'h on RMC radio on Sunday morning. “Everyone is responsible for where farmers gather, whether they are in a car or a tractor. »
“A priori, we are prohibited from entering Paris” on Sunday evening, “we obey, we will get in place during the night,” Christian Convers, secretary general of the organization, told AFP.
According to a police source, movements of agricultural vehicles should take place “rather in the second part of the night for actions on Monday during the day”.
Customary of punchy actions, the CR wishes to obtain guarantees from Prime Minister François Bayrou for the defense of agriculture focused on the protection of small farmers, whom it considers crushed by free trade.
The actions of the CR come on the eve of the launch of the campaign for the elections to the chambers of agriculture.
These elections, organized from January 15 to 31, will determine the new balance of power between agricultural unions, among which the FNSEA is currently ultra-dominant according to the results of the last election of 2019.
“Since COVID-19, we have accumulated and chained together the various health, economic, geopolitical and climatic crises, we are facing inflation in our production costs and the prices paid to our producers are not keeping up, and we have numerous farmers in distress,” said Mr.me Floc'h on RMC.
According to her, 30,000 farms have received aid over the past year, to the tune of 9,000 euros, “when the ministry itself says that more than 150,000 farms are in financial distress”.
