Several Rural Coordination convoys mobilized this Monday, January 6 towards the capital, expressing their intention to block Paris.
The Minister of Agriculture Annie Genevard (LR) declared this Monday January 6 that she understood “the concern” of the farmers of the Rural Coordination (CR) who are trying to reach the capital but insisted on the need not to “block Paris on a back-to-school day.
“They expressed the wish to block Paris. No, we are not blocking, in addition a day of school, a day of school for the French. No blockages which ultimately compromise the image of farmers among the French. And not of violence”, she warned, interviewed on TF1.
Tractors driven by farmers who are members of the Rural Coordination were blocked Monday morning by security forces at several points around Paris, which they were trying to reach to express their discontent.
The minister mentioned a mobilization of 200 farmers and around fifty tractors throughout the territory.
Farmers demand guarantees
François Bayrou is due to meet the agricultural unions in a week but the Rural Coordination, accustomed to heavy-handed actions, wanted to obtain guarantees from the Prime Minister now.
“Today or in a week, what difference does that make? The urgency they put forward to be received now, here right away, is not really justified,” added the Minister of Agriculture, adding having exchanged regularly with the president of the CR Véronique Le Floc’h. “She has my number.”
“The whole job of the government (…) is to hear this anger and to hear these demands, I responded to them in points. So I cannot be blamed for not having listened to the farmers” , said Annie Genevard again.
Asked about the agricultural orientation bill, delayed by the dissolution and successive changes of government, she confirmed that the text would be “among the first” studied by Parliament after the budget, “absolute priority”, “including for farmers”, and that the aid which will be voted on will be “retroactive”.
