“Fires of Wrath”snail operations, banners deployed on roundabouts, earth dumped on the road, municipalities renamed with the names of South American cities. Many symbolic actions took place, from one region to another, on the continent.
Less than a year after the angry movement which set the countryside ablaze and led to the blocking of main roads across the country, the majority union alliance FNSEA-Jeunes Agriculteurs (JA) launched a new cycle this Monday, November 18 mobilizations.
South American meat
On the island, farmers will take action a few days later, this Friday, November 22, with two gatherings, one in Ajaccio and the other in Bastia, respectively in front of the prefecture of Corse-du-Sud on the course Napoléon and at the Maréchal-Leclerc roundabout facing the Haute-Corse prefecture. In both cases, the appointment is set at 10 a.m., for “tall farmers” according to the words of Joseph Colombani, president of the FDSEA of Haute-Corse.
Island farmers, like their counterparts on the continent, intend to denounce the proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur countries (the common market of South America), which should allow Brazil and the Argentina in particular to export more poultry and other meats to the old continent.
Unfair or even fatal competition according to the head of the FDSEA of Haute-Corse, to the extent that “this treatise, and all the philosophy it contains, can be the final act of all the hopes that we can place in the development of our agricultural animal production.”
And he assures him, the scenario is very probable for Corsica, “pparticularly due to our delay in development, particularly in the breeding sectors.
The much-feared signing of a European Union – Mercosur agreement should, according to the union representative, be placed in a more general context marked by “a destruction of the productive function of agriculture” for the benefit “of a rural world transformed into a place of relaxation and leisure“. In this regard, within the FDSEA-JA alliance, we alert on “a downgrading of rurality caused by a societal choice which tends towards the urban”and “downgrading that we tolerate even less in Corsica than elsewhere“if only because it contradicts itself”with the deep attachment to our rurality which serves as the basis of our values and our culture”.
This Friday, farmers present in Ajaccio and Bastia will ask “that Europe regains its productive function, that we do not sacrifice our countryside despite all the talk about food sovereignty“. The demands put forward take on particular significance on an island scale where “the“local production represents only 4% of consumption”.
At the same time, they intend to speak out against “the absurd European regulations, reinforced by the French State particularly with regard to our breeding in Corsica”. The FDSEA-JA hammers it, these “dmust be denounced by those who want an agricultural future for our island, bringing jobs, wealth and peace“.
Note, for the moment, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, and the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, have spoken out against the treaty with the Mercosur countries.
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