There have been massive motorway blockades in France since January 22nd, showing the public the extent of French farmers' anger.
“Today it is not good to be an agricultural union leader. We have the feeling that the anger is there and that it will be difficult to contain it,” said Marc Dupouys, general secretary of the National Federation of Agribusiness Unions in the PyrénéesAtlantiques.
Hundreds of farmers from the department have gathered since Tuesday morning, January 23, blocking strategic roads with tractors. “Whoever sows misery reaps wrath,” says one of their posters.
From latecareer farmers to young people from agricultural secondary schools, everyone came to express their outrage. The driving force behind the protest is the fear that the category will not survive in the face of new European ecological rules and the feeling of neglect towards foreign products.
“We will block more and more roads until we are heard.”
What was a local action took on a national dimension and aroused the government's concern: after the blockade of the A64 motorway between Toulouse and Bayonne on Friday January 19, farmers increased the number of roadblocks, in what they called an “agricultural resistance movement” describe.
The uprising, quickly taken over by the unions, prompted the new French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to receive representatives of several unions on Monday 23rd.
At the end of the meeting with the Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau, representatives of the FNSEA and the Young Farmers Union expressed a problem with the “dignity” of the profession. “Today we are talking about a moral crisis, it is the agricultural world’s misunderstanding of the reality of its actions.”
This Wednesday, January 24th, forty clear demands will be published, setting out the main reasons for the industry's outrage. Wages, regulations, fuel taxes… As farmers' actions grow, protesters expand the range of demands.
Questioning European regulations
Several requirements of the job are related to the agricultural policy of the European Union. The dispute also concerns certain free trade agreements signed by the EU, such as that with Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay), which were never ratified.
The European Green Deal, a package of measures for the ecological transition of the EU member states, which particularly includes the reduction of pesticides and the development of organic farming, is also controversial.
The movement does not only affect France: farmer mobilizations are increasing in Germany, Romania and even Spain.
Farmers reject the famous “Green Pact”, a regulatory tsunami that will hit European agriculture in general.