Mobilization in France –
Farmers’ anger grows against the agreement with Mercosur
French farmers demonstrated this Monday against the free trade agreement with Latin American Mercosur countries.
Published today at 9:24 p.m.
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“France, do you still want your peasants?”: French farmers mobilized once again on Monday, less than a year after an unprecedented movement of anger in the countryside that the prospect of an agreement with Mercosur could ignite again.
The FNSEA-JA union alliance which is the majority in the sector in France has launched more than 80 symbolic actions, a prelude to a new cycle of mobilization.
All day long, these organizations multiplied the symbols.
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They planted crosses in the Var (south) to evoke the mortal danger facing French agriculture.
They blocked the Europe Bridge which connects Strasbourg to Germany to send a message to the European Commission, which seems determined to quickly conclude a free trade agreement with Latin American Mercosur countries.
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Negotiated for more than 20 years, this treaty provides in particular for beef import quotas with reduced or zero customs duties.
From Belgium to Paris
Near the Belgian border, farmers checked heavy goods vehicles. In front of the prefecture of Vesoul (east), 180 farmers placed village signs and dumped three skips full of corn stover.
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“We do not want a concrete blockage as we saw last year,” Pierrick Horel, president of the Young Farmers (JA), said Monday morning on RMC radio.
The impatient had brought out the tractors on Sunday, going in a procession near the Villacoublay air base, near Paris, from where Emmanuel Macron flew for the G20 in Rio, Brazil. “Macron, if you go to Rio, don’t forget your hillbillies,” proclaimed a banner hung on a bridge.
“Zero tolerance”
On Sunday, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau warned that there would be “zero tolerance” in the event of “sustainable blockage” of the roads.
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Less than a year after a vast movement of anger in the countryside, which resulted in January in blockages of sections of highways in the country, the agricultural unions are once again calling on their troops to demonstrate but in dispersed order, approaching their professional elections which will be held in January.
Hit by poor harvests and emerging animal diseases, they believe they have still not reaped the fruits of last winter’s anger.
And they consider the standards as complex as ever, and the income insufficient.
After fuel, customs duties
If taxes on agricultural fuel had been one of the catalysts for the mobilization last year, it is the outcome of the proposed free trade agreement of the European Union (EU) with the Mercosur countries (Brazil , Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia) which could set things on fire this year.
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Despite opposition from the political class and French agricultural stakeholders, the EU seems determined to sign this agreement by the end of the year, which will notably allow Latin American countries to sell more beef. , chicken or sugar without customs duties in Europe.
Facilitated exports
Several European countries, including Spain and Germany, want the agreement concluded, which would promote the export of cars, machines or pharmaceutical products from the European Union.
But French farmers fear unfair competition from products not subject to the strict environmental and health standards in force in Europe.
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This is why the FNSEA and its ally JA chose to relaunch the mobilization on Monday and Tuesday, the dates of a G20 summit in Brazil.
No “as is” signature
In Buenos Aires, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday that France would not “sign as is” the free trade treaty.
France has been explaining for weeks that it is “looking for allies” in the EU to push back a signature.
And on Monday, the Italian Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigidra said that he considered that the treaty with Mercosur was, “in its current form”, “not acceptable”.
“We must verify in advance the respect by the Mercosur countries of the same obligations that we impose on our farmers in terms of respect for workers’ rights and the environment,” justified this minister who is a member of Fratelli d’Italia, the party of far right led by Giorgia Meloni of whom he is close.
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AFP/Myrtille Wendling
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