After a first week of mobilization against the free trade treaty that the European Union is negotiating with Latin American Mercosur countries, actions should broaden to denunciation of the “impediments” to production denounced by the majority alliance FNSEA-Young Farmers (JA) as well as its competitor Rural Coordination (CR), the 2nd agricultural union.
FNSEA actions in 85 departments
The president of the FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau announced new actions with the JA “Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday” to “denounce the obstacles to agriculture and everything that today constrains our activity”.
After symbolic actions – fires of anger, rallies – claimed in 85 departments, the actions will target for example prefectures, water agencies or the office of the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB). “Almost all departments plan to take action in the coming days,” warned the JA.
Following the FNSEA's credo – “No ban without solution” – the demonstrators will notably defend the return of acetamiprid, an insecticide from the neonicotinoid family, demanded by hazelnut and sugar beet producers. Harmful to pollinators, it is banned in France but used in other countries of the European Union. They also demand increased access to water and the simplification of the millefeuille of French and European standards, deeming the efforts made by the government still insufficient.
Rural coordination and peasant confederation too
The Rural Coordination, which has multiplied its splashes in recent days, plans to “amplify” its mobilization beyond the South-West where its actions have been concentrated in recent days.
After a filter barrier at the Spanish border, the blockade of the commercial port of Bordeaux or a muscular intrusion into an office of the OFB, of which it demands the “dissolution”, the union plans a rally on Tuesday in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg but also a ditch cleaning operation in the Hautes-Alpes and the continued blocking of distributors' purchasing centers.
Opposed for decades to free trade, the Peasant Confederation, heir to the alter-globalization peasant struggles, continues its mobilizations against Mercosur and “for the defense of peasant income” and the agro-ecological transition. She plans in particular a mobilization in a supermarket in Essonne on Monday and an anti-Mercosur action in Dordogne on Tuesday.
Tensions between unions
On Friday, tension suddenly rose between the FNSEA and the Rural Coordination, including around fifty members from its stronghold of Lot-et-Garonne disrupted a trip by Arnaud Rousseau to Agen. In an electric atmosphere, the activists in yellow hats booed the boss of the FNSEA and threatened to prevent him from leaving, before letting him return to his vehicle under police escort.
The president of the FNSEA deplored “lamentable methods” and “unacceptable threats”, believing that this search for “escalation” or “buzz” did not “advance the agricultural project”.
This confrontation comes a few weeks before the vote to elect the departmental chambers of agriculture. The Rural Coordination, which currently chairs three, including that of Lot-et-Garonne for two decades, hopes to break the hegemony of the FNSEA-JA alliance and capture “15 to 20 additional rooms”.
In this tense climate, where the risk of overbidding is scrutinized by political observers, the government ensures that France is making progress in building a blocking minority in the EU-Mercosur agreement: after Italy, Poland has expressed its rejection on Friday.
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