Coming from different regions, farmers from Rural Coordination (CR), the second French agricultural union, are heading to Paris, but are not planning any major action on Sunday evening.
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“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 Rural Coordination, and president of CR Hauts de France, 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 are no significant developments in our movement to expect this Sunday, before tomorrow (Monday),” assured Patrcik Legras, himself on his way from Hauts-de-France.
According to a police source, at 4:00 p.m., around ten tractors, nine light vehicles and a camper van coming from Loir-et-Cher and Eure-et-Loire were progressing towards the Paris region, via the D927 and the D2020, at Châteaudun in Eure-et-Loire.
“Deliberately, we divided the organization of this day and the days to come between five people” only, indicated the president of the movement Véronique Le Floc'h on RMC 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” Sunday evening, “we obey, we will set up during the night”, Christian Convers, secretary general of the organization, told AFP. Customary of punchy actions, the CR wishes to obtain guarantees from the Prime Minister for the defense of agriculture focused on the protection of small farmers whom it considers crushed by free trade.
Christian Convers was to participate in the evening in Paris in a gathering of farmers at Place du Brazil, in the 17th arrondissement, a place symbolically chosen to denounce the recent trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur.
According to an AFP journalist on site, eleven farmers present at Place du Brazil were asked to take off their yellow hats, which they refused to do. According to police sources, the organizer of the rally was arrested and the other demonstrators “will be escorted outside of Paris”. 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. The four main unions must be received at Matignon on January 13.
“Since Covid, 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 many farmers in distress”, declared Véronique Le Floc'h le 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”.
