By tractor or car, farmers from the Rural Coordination (CR) tried in vain on Monday to gather in Paris, held back by the police, while the Minister of Agriculture warned that the capital should not not be blocked.
A few dozen of them, coming in particular from Marne and Aube, were present Monday morning in Paris and tried to gather at the Trocadéro to reach the Arc de Triomphe, despite the ban on gatherings pronounced by the Police headquarters. But, controlled by the police, they did not succeed.
Not far from Matignon, seven others accompanied by a goat were “evicted without incident”, according to a police source.
The authorities “never wanted to let us enter Paris. We asked for a drop-off point for a rally, but we never obtained it,” union general secretary Christian Convers told AFP from the Trocadéro, refuting any “intention to block anything” .
“We’re going to stop there, the farmers are going home”; he said at the end of the day. “But we take note of this government’s approach towards farmers. We have never seen such an approach to the agricultural world. Farmers will appreciate it.
On the eve of the start of the electoral campaign for the chambers of agriculture, the “yellow hats” of the second agricultural union want to make themselves heard: against free trade agreements, unfair competition, including intra-European , and controls on farms.
From the departments around Paris, several convoys attempted to approach the capital on Monday.
AFP
In Yvelines, around ten tractors and around fifteen cars forced a passage, before being blocked. In Seine-et-Marne, two small convoys were also contained by the police, according to a police source.
In Essonne, a dam was forced by six tractors, subsequently intercepted. Farmers were authorized, in a tense climate, to reach the site of a Tereos sugar factory with their 21 tractors; those in personal vehicles have committed to giving up Paris and leaving in supervised convoys, from the same source.
“Warning shot”
While saying she understood the “concern” of the operators, the Minister of Agriculture Annie Genevard warned Monday morning that there was no question of authorizing a paralysis of the city.
“No, we are not blocking it, on a back-to-school day,” she said on TF1.
The minister mentioned a mobilization of 200 farmers and around fifty tractors throughout the territory.
Recalling that Prime Minister François Bayrou would receive the agricultural unions next Monday, she considered that “the urgency that they put forward to be received now, here immediately”, was not really justified.
On the ground, the demonstrators deplored being blocked simply because of “wearing a yellow cap”.
“Our goal is to try to have a meeting with the Prime Minister or to speak with parliamentarians, but here they are completely preventing us from demonstrating,” said Mr. Convers, already briefly arrested by the police on Sunday while he was arrived by car to participate in a gathering at Place du Brazil in Paris.
The president of the CR de l’Aube, Christophe Sichnknecht, highlighted the urgency of certain situations: “we need answers”. “Today is the wake-up call, we are capable of going wherever we want,” he assured.
Member of the union, Frédéric Bourbonneux, who cultivates 150 ha in Nogent-sur-Seine (Aube), says he lost 50% of wheat yield this year: “climate insurance barely compensates 10% (of losses), taxes and contributions increased while the price of cereals fell on the markets, we can’t do it.
Farmers are protesting in particular against the signing of a free trade agreement between the EU and Latin American Mercosur countries.
On this subject, Emmanuel Macron assured Monday that the “mass was not said”. “We will continue to forcefully defend the coherence of our commitments,” he said.
The Paris Police Prefecture had banned undeclared gatherings from Sunday 6 p.m. to Monday 12 p.m. within a large area of central Paris. The Val-de-Marne prefecture had done the same around the Rungis market and on the A6 motorway.
This mobilization comes before the professional elections, organized from January 15 to 31, which will determine the new balance of power between agricultural unions: the CR, which has gained visibility thanks to punchy actions since last winter, hopes stealing around fifteen rooms from the hegemonic FNSEA-Young Farmers alliance.
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