The agricultural crisis experienced a new episode this Monday morning, at the southern gates of the Lyon metropolitan area. Faced with the delay in implementing the measures promised after the movement at the start of 2024, farmers are once again expressing their anger on the roads. At the call of Rural Coordination and the local Agri Chabanière association, they decided to block the A7, the M7, the A450.
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Around thirty tractors met at 5:30 a.m., in the town of Beauvallon, near Mornant, with the meeting place at the Uniferme sales point which distributes products from local agriculture. They then left in convoy, advancing at a walking pace towards Pierre-Bénite, on the A 450. Their objective: the junction with the M7, an essential axis of the southern entrance to Lyon towards which all the vehicles coming from of the A7 and the A47.
“We are not here to annoy people, explains Bruno Ferret, market gardener, “but, unfortunately, we have to work hard to get something. We've been left hanging for a year!” Farmers are particularly opposed to the over-transposition of European directives on phytosanitary products, that is to say to the implementation in France of standards more restrictive than those of Europe: “If we want to be cleaner than the EU”added Bruo Ferret, “so we close our borders to products from elsewhere!”
Around thirty tractors gathered.
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© F3
The snail operation quickly caused traffic congestion at the 7 Chemins roundabout, in Vourles, then at the entrance to Brignais. Around 8:30 a.m., the procession stopped on the A450 near the Pierre-Bénite radar.
These farmers, breeders or arborists from the Monts du Lyonnais, located in the departments of Rhône and Loire, are once again expressing their anger, believing that the promises made at the end of the 2024 movement have not been kept. “We're not coming back this year lightly.” testifies François Gonon, arborist in Chabanière. “Before the dissolution and censorship, there were things in the pipeline that went our way, and now, everything is at a standstill!“
Rural Coordination is at the origin of the mobilization.
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© F3
The four main agricultural unions will finally be received in Matignon on January 13, but the Rural Coordination, the second union in terms of number of members, has maintained the shows of force in Paris and in the region. Farmers complain of financial difficulties, red tape, agribashing, and threats posed by the Mercosur free trade agreement. For Damien Fond, an arborist in Valfleury, it is French agriculture that is in danger: “It has become so difficult to make a living from our activity that everyone stops and no one takes over the farms. Around my home, there are quality plots of land that are abandoned.”
The holding of elections to the Chambers of Agriculture in the second half of January also affects the current climate. Although the demonstration declaration to the prefecture is valid for 48 hours, the mobilization could last several days, with the organizers planning to take stock daily.
