Pas-de-Calais farmers block the A16 motorway

Around fifty tractors blocked the A16 motorway at Cité Europe in the Boulogne-Calais direction on the morning of Wednesday, December 11, 2024. Their slogan: denounce Mercosur, the validated free trade agreement by the President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen with the countries of South America.

“With this free trade agreement, we are walking on our heads”: these are the words of Antoine Peenaert, beet grower and leader of the FDSEA of Calaisis. He is at the head of the new punch action taking place this Wednesday morning on the A16 motorway. Around a hundred farmers from Pas-de-Calais blocked the roads in the Boulogne-Calais direction near the Europe city using around 70 tractors. A demonstration that the farmers had announced to the authorities. The police therefore set up a diversion upstream of the blockage, thus avoiding huge traffic jams on the highway.

Because the farmers' objective is not to disturb the general public but to block a strategic point close to the Channel Tunnel and the port of Calais to continue to denounce the Mercosur free trade agreement, which the European Union is preparing to conclude with several South American countries.

“In Hauts-de-France, we have livestock land, crop land, we are directly threatened by this agreement. We are going to import chickens that will travel 10,000 kilometers, while we have chickens in Licques, 10 kilometers from here, which can very well satisfy French consumers.”, explains Antoine Peenaert, “France is certainly opposed to this agreement, but it is becoming a minority in Europe. So we are frustrated because France cannot make its voice heard.”

At the heart of the concerns, the distortions of competition between European farmers and their South American counterparts: “In France, we do not control what we import, so we will let in chickens stuffed with antibiotics, beef with hormones, while here we are subject to very strict environmental standards. These standards must be the same for everyone.”

A discontent against the Mercosur agreements which adds to the anger that farmers have let break out since last winter: “The government has been making promises to us for a year. But with the dissolution and the various ministerial reshuffles, each time, the vote on the law is postponed”, adds Antoine Peenaert.

Last Friday, the President of the European Commission announced the finalization of the free trade agreement with the Latin American countries of Mercosur. The agreement still needs to be ratified, via the approval of at least fifteen member states representing 65% of the EU population, then by bringing together a majority in the European Parliament.