The calm after the storm. The announcement of new measures for farmers by Gabriel Attal on Thursday February 1, after initial pledges given the day before by the European Commission on fallow land and Ukrainian imports, convinced the main unions to suspend the blockades.
This Saturday, February 3 in the morning, demonstrators evacuated the Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (Isère) tollbooth on the A43, after a “dialogue” between the unions and the police, according to the prefecture. “We resisted as best we could, we are the only ones who called to continue the fight,” insists Isabelle Douillon, a farmer from Rhône, while the deployment of 1,000 hives was initially planned there on Monday.
In the morning, the approximately 80 farmers who had blocked the E. Leclerc purchasing center in Saint-Etienne-de-Montluc (Loire-Atlantique) since January 29 were also in the process of being evacuated by the forces of the order. These were the last two blocking points erected by the Peasant Confederation.
Road carriers authorized to travel this weekend
A sign of calm and a certain return to normal on the roads, the executive has once again authorized road hauliers “over 7.5 tonnes” to travel exceptionally during the weekend, according to a stopped published this Saturday in the Official Journal.
The renewal of this exceptional authorization, already granted by the government last weekend, must “allow the completion of transport operations started before Saturday February 3 at 10 p.m. as well as the return of road drivers whose transport operations have been disrupted by the traffic difficulties caused by the farmers’ demonstrations”, it is further specified.
Traffic had resumed on Friday on several motorways, starting with that of the south of France, the A7, which had been cut for 130 kilometers since January 23.
“This is not the end of our actions”
However, “this is not the end of our actions”, insisted the president of the Departmental Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FDSEA) of Savoie, Bernard Mogenet, during a congress in Albertville this Friday.
After the end of the blockades, the urgency is for negotiations at the local level in order to “obtain respect for the dignity of farmers, fair remuneration and acceptable working conditions”, we can read in the Dauphiné Libéré.
Latest action to date: the dumping of manure and dung in front of the departmental branch of the French Biodiversity Office (OFB) in Mende (Lozère). The action was carried out by around forty farmers traveling on board around 25 tractors.
“The environmental police are a Franco-French heresy, we are fed up with them thinking they are cowboys. We are going to ask that they come to the farms unarmed and without sunglasses,” said Alain Pouget, president of Rural Coordination in Occitania, who accuses OFB agents of carrying out excessive controls.