Farmers symbolically block several public buildings, Minister Annie Genevard “condemns any attack on people and property”

After actions mainly concentrated in rural areas in recent days, the mobilization of farmers continues Thursday, November 28, targeting public establishments. A hundred farmers erected a cardboard wall in the morning to symbolically block the entrance to the Anses health agency in Maisons-Alfort, in Val-de-Marne.

Ile-de-France farmers, led by the majority union alliance FNSEA/Jeunes Agriculteurs, placed empty cardboard boxes in front of ANSES headquarters to encourage the agency “to move to Brussels, so that she stops contradicting European regulations”justified Cyrille Milard, president of the FNSEA branch in Seine-et-Marne.

A similar action was carried out at dawn, this time with concrete blocks, in front of the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, located in the 7^e district in Paris. Gathered very early, before 6 a.m., without tractors or machinery, farmers were first surrounded by the police, then, calmly, laid the concrete blocks in front of Inrae. Around 7:30 a.m., they began to disperse. Access to the front door of the building was not blocked. Tagged in orange on the wall about two meters high, we can read « INRA escrolos »while a banner displays: “For sale, no longer useful – Lease to be transferred – Savings: 1.1 billion EUR”.

During their action, organized by the majority agricultural union alliance FNSEA and Young Farmers (JA), the demonstrators accused INRAE ​​of organizing “degrowth”to no longer “provide the means to fulfill [leur] function of producers ». “We finance a national institute at a billion euros per year which only brings us constraints”underlined Donatien Moyson, co-president of Jeunes Agriculteurs Ile-de-France Ouest.

In the Alpes-Maritimes, farmers dumped manure and sheep's wool in front of the gates of the Nice prefecture to show their anger, according to the local press.

Trade union organizations received at the ministry on Friday

The Minister of Agriculture, Annie Genevard, condemned Thursday morning, in a statement to Agence France-Presse, “with the greatest firmness, any attack on people or property, which harms the legitimate demands of farmers”.

M^me Genevard is due to receive the president of INRAE ​​on Thursday afternoon, “to discuss the issue of simplification for farmers, the role of the institute and find common responses to too many administrative constraints”according to the ministry. Friday morning, she will receive “at his request, trade union organizations can move forward with concrete measures aimed at simplifying the daily lives of our farmers”adds his ministry.

After a first week of mobilization under the sign of opposition to the proposed free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay), the union alliance decided to focus this new week of agricultural mobilization on what it considers to be «obstacles» to the sector, attacking state services and prefectures in particular. On Wednesday, 28 actions took place in 24 departments, authorities recorded, involving 1,600 people and 479 agricultural machines, in actions which targeted “more public buildings”.