After Germany, Poland, Romania and the Netherlands, French farmers are blocking roads within the South-West. Their protest motion might unfold to different areas, resulting in additional mobilizations.
It’s a Jacquerie that nobody is aware of at the moment how far it might go. The Government fears an uncontrollable motion, like that of the Gilets jaunes in 2018, which might inflame France, as soon as once more, 5 months from the European elections and 6 months from the Olympic Video games. And a month earlier than the opening of the Salon de l’Agriculture in Paris. In any case, what’s occurring within the southwest is trigger for concern.
Roads and freeways minimize off
Within the Occitanie area, tractors left their farms to precise the anger of the farming neighborhood. On the name of the Fédération régionale des syndicats d’exploitants agricoles (FRSEA), a number of hundred farmers took to the area’s roads, inflicting large visitors jams.
On Tuesday, January 16, 2024, 400 or 500 farm equipment models have been in Toulouse, supported by a number of thousand farmers from all of the departments of Occitanie, in addition to many Toulousans. They placed on a present of power and promised additional motion if their calls for weren’t taken under consideration by each Paris and Brussels. And to point out they meant enterprise, the tractors, laden with manure, went on to dam the ring highway, then different roads and freeways.
On Thursday, they blocked the RN20 in Ariège and the A64, which hyperlinks Toulouse to Bayonne. On Friday January 19 and Saturday January 20, they’re nonetheless mobilized, and have introduced “a limiteless blockade” till they obtain a gathering with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
Sectoral calls for
What are the offended farmers within the South-West demanding? Their calls for are fairly disparate, however all have one frequent denominator: incomes at half-mast, which not permit younger farmers particularly to make an honest residing from their farms.
Within the South-West greater than wherever else, the drought is affecting agriculture. A farmer within the Haute-Garonne explains to the native press that cereals are in brief provide to feed his cows. Final summer time,” he says, “I harvested three tons of corn on 7 hectares, in contrast with the standard 35 to 40 tons. Because of this, he can not feed his animals and is pressured to promote a part of his herd.
“I can’t get a minimal wage out of my farm,” says one other farmer within the Gers.
“We need to make a residing from our work”
For all involved, the rise in vitality costs, which is driving up manufacturing prices (costs of animal feed and all phytosanitary merchandise), and the autumn in promoting costs for agricultural merchandise (milk, meat, cereals), below strain from industrialists and supermarkets, are placing French farmers in an untenable place.
Add to this the inflation of environmental requirements, i.e. the constraints imposed on farmers to provide in ecologically-compatible situations: air pollution tax, discount of fertilizers, suppression of sure pesticides that are approved in competing nations (South America, Spain, and so on.), unfair competitors (akin to merchandise from the Ukraine), to not point out farm subsidies that are delayed or withdrawn.
And to high all of it off, a number of ailments are hitting livestock farms: chicken flu, which is decimating duck and goose farms, and epizootic haemorrhagic illness (EHD), which is affecting cattle farms. There’s loads to be offended about. “We need to make a residing from our work, nothing extra,” explains one Pyrenean farmer.
Will he be heard?
Il est anormal que les personnes qui nous nourrissent, travaillent 7/7, 15 h par jour soient au seuil de pauvreté. Nous devons soutenir nos agriculteurs. https://t.co/FqaZubY54L
— VERITY France (@verity_france) January 20, 2024
Des #agriculteurs déversent du fumier et des déchets devant la préfecture de Limoges. pic.twitter.com/zhOORNfTxf
— Anonyme Citoyen (@AnonymeCitoyen) January 19, 2024
