Anger of farmers: the Mercosur ratification project sets Montauban ablaze

For the first demonstration since last winter, farmers managed to mobilize. This Monday evening, around fifty tractors, for at least 150 to 200 people, took over the Rome roundabout, in Montauban, at the call of the Young Farmers and the FDSEA 82. Coming from around the prefecture, the cantons of Castelsarrasin, Caussade, Caylus and even Parisot, the farmers dumped their bins of old pallets and other waste on this immense roundabout from the Albasud activity zone in order to light fires of anger.

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We thus found René at the barbecue, the trade unionists at work and the journalists who came to hand the microphone to those who, in reality, would have done well without it. But by all accounts, “the point of no return has been reached”.

“On our farms, we don’t see anything concrete. Yes, we can welcome some union achievements but it is not the detaxation of the GNR which will help us get over the hump. Especially here in the South. From now on, they must decide: do they want to save the family farm model that is ours? », asks Sandra Dirat. To survive, the sheep breeder with her husband Jean-Marie, in Saint-Nicolas-de-la-Grave, was forced to accept paid employment within the FDSEA 81. “In the Tarn, the Tarn -et-Garonne and Haute-Garonne, the situation is the same everywhere,” she says as the first flames light up the faces with lots of bales of straw.

“Commando operations”

But of course, it is also and above all Mercosur which has ignited the powder. “We have not forgotten the demands of last winter, especially since the mobilization has never stopped on this subject. But Mercosur could sign the end of all sectors. People will end up with shit on their plates and animals fattened with hormones. If it is signed, there will no longer be respect for environmental and social standards,” warns Damien Garrigues, president of the FDSEA 82. “Some European countries are not worried because on a basic level, they do not have the same burdens and constraints that France,” he observes before joining the Young Farmers Benjamin Checchin and Anselme Pailhiez for a family photo. Then the procession took to the road for a fanfare tour through the streets of Montauban.

The fateful question remains: what actions are to be planned in the coming days? “We are not going to stop there but we are not the Yellow Vests either. So we will organize commando operations here and elsewhere,” warns Jean-Philippe Viguié, No. 2 of the FDSEA. The president confirms that he is not considering highway blockages, like last winter. “These will be short but strong actions and not necessarily road-based,” adds Damien Garrigues. Either the government takes its responsibilities, or we will be forced to make it take them. »