In France, new striking actions were carried out by farmers from the majority union alliance FNSEA-Jeunes Agriculteurs. Early this Thursday, November 28, around a hundred of them symbolically walled off the entrance to the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) in Paris with concrete blocks, which they accused of hindering their work.
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Targeting a scientific institution is not really unprecedented. The National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) had already been targeted a few months ago by the agricultural world and in particular by the FNSEA, the majority union favorable to the agricultural model. intensive.
At that time, the bronca was against a post on the social networks of the Research Institute which relayed the thesis of a scientist on the place of meat in the world of catering and proposed that the meal of Saint -Valentin be more plant-based, in order to fight against climate change.
This Thursday, November 28, the farmers who symbolically walled up the Inrae and tagged it “ INRA Escrolos “, accused the research organization, particularly agronomic, of no longer ” provide the means to fulfill their role as producer “, ” to organize the decline » or to multiply “ the constraints “.
In particular, INRAE is working to find alternatives to the use of bee-killing pesticides in beet crops.
Environmental organizations also targeted
Later in the morning, another institution housing scientists was targeted. Cardboard boxes, this time, were placed to symbolically wall off the National Health Security Agency (ANSES), accused of being more demanding than European regulations.
Environmental associations and organizations have also been targeted in recent days. Acts of vandalism have been recorded against agencies of the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB), the state agency responsible for nature protection and which works as environmental police in France. Environmental associations have also denounced in court violence on the part of representatives of the agricultural world. This had already been the case during the agricultural anger movement at the start of the year.
There is a gap between the perception of farmers who consider themselves very controlled by the environmental police in particular and the reality on the ground. A report of several ministerial inspections, revealed by the media Contextthus showed that in 2023, 90% of French agricultural operations were not controlled by any administrative service. Only 1% had more than two checks.
These punch operations also aim to reinforce a supposed opposition between what would be a scientific, urban and ecological elite on the one hand, and peasant common sense on the other. It is the political strategy of Coordination Rurale, the agricultural union close to the extreme right which threatens the hegemony of the FNSEA within the profession. The current renewed mobilization of farmers can in fact be read in the context of the ongoing campaign between these unions a few weeks before the elections in the chambers of agriculture, scheduled for January.
Also readFrance: who is the Coordination Rurale agricultural union for?