The president is on alert as mobilizations are organized in the agricultural world. In his camp, there is fear of a large-scale social movement.
Will the German farmers’ protest movement be imported to France? It is in any case a hypothesis which is taken very seriously in the ranks of the macronie. In the Council of Ministers, the Head of State “asked us to be attentive to what is rustling in our countryside”, testifies a member of the government to Politico. Five months before the European elections, the executive trembles at the idea of a new social movement like the yellow vests.
“He’s freaking out,” admits support fromEmmanuel Macron. “Farmers’ demonstrations are never fun”, recalls this same support from the Head of State: “5000 tractors like in Berlin, that creates the RN vote”, he worries. Moreover, “the RN will do everything to excite them, LR will do nothing to contain them”.
Mobilizations this week
Jordan Bardella has already planned to go to Gironde on Saturday January 20 alongside the farmers’ movement. A gathering was held in Toulouse on Tuesday, others are planned for Thursday in Occitanie. Inflation, bad weather, not forgetting the new standards imposed by the ecological transition, are all factors that are causing exhaustion and anger in the rural world. “The whole thing creates a somewhat feverish atmosphere,” readily admits a collaborator at the Ministry of Agriculture.
It is not for nothing that Emmanuel Macron promised, during his press conference on Tuesday January 16, “to increase support for farmers in the coming months”. Will he have been able to make himself heard?