Monday, November 18, in the afternoon, the Europe Bridge in Strasbourg was cut off to traffic by a parade of tractors. The blockade was lifted in the evening. A symbolic operation, organized jointly by farmer members of the local branch of the agricultural union FNSEA and their German counterparts. Together, they wanted to express their opposition to the free trade agreement negotiated between the European Union (EU) and the Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia) as the opening of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This Alsatian mobilization is one of the operations organized in the territory by the FNSEA associated with Young Farmers (JA). According to this union alliance, “85 demonstration points” were recorded on Monday and others are expected on Tuesday. With a slogan: “Don’t bore the French”in the words of the FNSEA. Thus, the partial blockade of the national 118, next to the Villacoublay military air base in Yvelines, near Paris, put in place by Ile-de-France farmers on Sunday, at the end of the day, with around twenty tractors, was suspended, Monday at the very beginning of the afternoon.
In Cannet-des-Maures (Var), some 300 farmers placed earth on the road and planted crosses symbolizing the death of French agriculture, threatened, according to them, by the free trade agreement with the countries of Mercosur which the European Commission wishes to see concluded quickly.
Strike operations
In Montpellier, in Hérault, there were around 200 people hanging signs of localities in the department on the gates of the prefecture. They then covered the Three Graces fountain on the Place de la Comédie and placed manure around it. At the end of the afternoon, “fires of anger” were lit more or less simultaneously in numerous localities, from Albi to La Rochelle via Lyon, Bordeaux, Arras, Périgueux and Châlons-en-Champagne.
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Other actions are scheduled for Tuesday, November 19. Rural Coordination (CR), the second agricultural union, should, in turn, mobilize through its local branch CR 47 in Lot-et-Garonne, which distinguished itself at the start of the year with its coup fist. As for the Peasant Confederation (CP), it continues its program of gatherings according to themes specific to it. On Monday, she placed solar panels in front of the Corrèze Chamber of Agriculture to denounce the erosion of land by energy projects.
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