The government speaks of a “crisis of faith among farmers”. Blockages, setting up of camps, tractor parades… The mobilization of the agricultural world continued this Sunday, January 21, with the A64 motorway still being cut near Toulouse for a fourth consecutive day.
While demonstrators continue to hold a makeshift camp set up on both lanes of the highway towards Bayonne, near Carbonne (Haute-Garonne), the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, announced the postponement “of a few weeks” of the bill on the installation of new farmers.
The text was to be examined on Wednesday January 24 in the Council of Ministers, but additional time was granted by the minister to “add some regulatory measures” as well as a “simplification” component. Thus, during the program “Le Grand Jury”, Marc Fesneau promised to fight against the “feeling of downgrading” of farmers, too often prey to contradictory “injunctions” particularly linked to the European Green Pact, also called the Green Deal.
In addition to the increase in margins from manufacturers and distributors – and, consequently, the drop in their income – farmers denounce competition that they consider unfair from other European countries. They are also facing the problem of irrigation restrictions, after successive droughts in the summer then in the fall of 2023, and standards considered too restrictive.
“Support” from the right
A few months before the European elections, the theme is galvanizing politicians. Each party uses its arguments to try to seduce angry farmers. For Olivier Marleix, leader of the Republican deputies, it is above all the increase in taxation on non-road diesel (GNR) which “triggers anger”. “The government must immediately renounce this measure,” he insisted at the microphone of France 3 this Sunday.
Olivier Marleix, who expressed his “support” for the farmers’ movement, blockages included, believes that their situation “is no longer tenable”. “We make farmers into delinquents, so at some point there is a level of frustration.” A point of disagreement with the president of the rebellious deputies, Mathilde Panot, who highlighted on the same channel the need for “ecological standards”. She recalls, however, that her party had already proposed a “floor price so that farmers can live with dignity”, rejected “by six votes in the National Assembly”.
Attal receives the unions in Matignon
On the National Rally side, the strategy aims to discredit government and European policies. From the wine-growing Gironde, the number one of the RN, Jordan Bardella, denounced this Saturday “Macron’s Europe which wants the death of our agriculture”. In an attempt to appease the movement – and, at the same time, to quell the cackle of the opposition – the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, will receive the FNSEA and Young Farmers unions in Matignon this Monday, January 22.
Referring to agriculture as an “opportunity” and a “pride” for France, he notably promised to “make life easier” for farmers by reducing “red tape” during an exchange with French people organized in the Rhône. Gabriel Attal also guaranteed “more controls” to ensure that annual commercial negotiations between supermarket brands and their agro-industry suppliers are not carried out to the detriment of the price paid to farmers who produce the raw material. food.
“You must be able to live from your work,” said the Prime Minister, a month before the opening of the traditional Agricultural Show.