in the Rhône department, the mobilization of farmers

Like a sense of déjà vu. Around Lyon, municipal signs have been removed, others covered. On the tarpaulins, slogans like “eat French” or “we are lost“. The farmers met on Sunday, November 17 near Tarare, in the Rhône department.

Among them, we find Alvin and Pascal Gouttenoire, father and son, dairy breeders and soon meat breeders. The tarpaulins are installed in their car with the tape and paint. “We're just getting started, you have the exclusivity of the first panel in the sector, in Vindry-sur-Turdine. Our goal is not to damage the panels, Alvin explains. We write on the tarpaulins and not on the sign like that, at least we have peace of mind. We wrote 'We are lost' because we don't know where we are going, we had demands, we were waiting for answers that we still don't have.”

Ten months after the demonstrations at the start of the year, a new perspective crystallizes the anger of farmers : a free trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur countries (Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia). “This is the straw that breaks the camel's back. We already trade in everything related to minerals and raw materials, with Brazil in particular, and now they want to include meat in the commercial procedures. The problem is that if we do that, we destroy ourselves internally.”Alvin worries.

This agreement, which plans to increase trade between the two common markets by removing numerous taxes, should facilitate access to the European market for the Mercosur countries. In particular, it should allow South American countries to export to Europe some 99 000 tonnes of beef benefiting from customs duties of 7.5%. If France is opposed to this agreement, this is not the case for all European countries, which worries the unions.

In Erwin's chest, many town panels are loaded. He is a winemaker in a family estate in Le Breuil, and explains the approach to these new actions : “We removed the signs to say that we are being stepped on, that we are being banned from all essential products for the vines, whether fertilizers, or phytosanitary products without offering us any compensation to maintain the vines and have a real harvest We take the panels to Lyon, they will return to their place if we make ourselves heard otherwise it is they themselves who will put them back.“. And since the authorities have been informed, Alvin does not fear any real punishment.

A mobilization “symbolic“, and “quiet start“, explains, for his part, the vice-president of the FDSEA union in the Rhône, Pascal Gouttenoire. “That was really the watchword, start slowly, we would like not to do like at the start of the yearhe says. The goal is not to block but the government must react very quickly. The problem is not that the products come from abroad, it's that they are made in totally unfair competition with standards that are not at all like us… Beef with hormones, cereals with banned phytosanitary products here, we understand that it may not be the same price, but it is not the same quality, so it would relieve agriculture if there was rapid awareness, but unfortunately… we hope without hoping”, he concluded with a sigh.

The farmers invited the parliamentarians to a bridge at the entrance to Lyon to discuss and exhibit the thirty municipal panels dismantled over the weekend.