The organizers of the Agricultural Show, which opens on Saturday in Paris, hope that this 60th edition will be a “great celebration”, spared by the demonstrations. But the agricultural world is still boiling with demands and anger. And a few days before the opening of this legendary Parisian exhibition fair – which is to be held from February 24 to March 3 – their expectations are higher than ever. There is no doubt that these will be on the agenda of the discussions at the meeting scheduled for this Tuesday afternoon between the unions and the President of the Republic.
“The anger is still there. It is not because the farmers have returned to the farms that the subject is over,” confirmed Arnaud Rousseau, the president of the FNSEA this Monday morning, on Europe 1/CNews. However, he assured that the role of his union was now to be “in the time of proposals and the search for solutions”. What if the state is reluctant to find any? He warns: “The farmers will then realize that they are being made fun of, and I imagine that the actions will resume.” Before reminding us: “in any case, at the moment we are in, we have no spirit of hindsight”.
LISTEN TO OUR PODCAST
Elsewhere in France, several mobilizations were underway this Monday. In Bouches-du-Rhône, several processions of farmers, who came from the four corners of the department at the call of the FNSEA and Young Farmers to demand the ability to “make a living from their profession”, have just arrived in Marseille where they planned to participate in a symbolic action in the Old Port, near the Mucem museum, before going to the prefecture. Same thing in Ibos, near Tarbes, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, where farmers began to block the arrival of goods in a supermarket. In the Marne, farmers dumped several bins of manure in front of state services, to protest against their “inaction” after government announcements. In Dunkirk, around fifty tractors for their part carried out a snail operation, to demand the fulfillment of promises, and refuse expropriations of agricultural land as part of the seaport extension project.
Why fear a return of blockages a few days before the opening of the Agricultural Show? In any case, this is what Christophe Chambon, the deputy secretary general of the FNSEA, predicts, who announced this Monday on BFMTV the return of blockages “ahead of the Agricultural Show to really make the President of the Republic hear, that if he wants the show to be a showcase for national agriculture, we really need concrete results.” “I insist on the calendar,” he added, hoping that “precise dates” would confirm the “various measures” announced by the government in recent days.
A feeling shared by the spokesperson for the Peasant Confederation, Laurence Marandola, who assured this Monday on BFMTV that her union “never demobilized”. “We continue to have actions, we will have strong action in the middle of the week and at the Agricultural Show,” she explained, while the unions will remain, according to her, “strongly mobilized all week” in view of a living room “very different from what we have known until now”.
Also read “I can’t believe it”: an over-indebted farmer collects more than 160,000 euros to “save her goats”
As for whether the 2024 Agricultural Show will be an edition like any other, the union official said “no”. “The expectation is very high, so it will not be a show like any other. It is a show where the President of the Republic will first have to say what he intends to do, to hear the annoyance (…) and no one imagines that he can, like every year, parade in the went without having had a strong, clear statement and listening to the agricultural world,” he said, believing that Emmanuel Macron could not ignore this very strong expectation. “In any case, we will tell him again tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday, Editor’s note),” he further assured.
But there’s no question of spoiling the party either, assures the president of the FNSEA, who recalls that the show, “it’s a year of work for those who organize it”, with “people who have been taking competitions for months for their animals who are extremely proud of what they do and who are right to be proud of what they do”, with “a general agricultural competition which will be held whatever happens”. “Let us not confuse what is the life of the Show, the promotion of our products and our animals with what is the political moment which is an expected moment, which will not be a moment like the others and on which it “There are high standards and we expect very concrete answers,” he said.
In any case, Gabriel Attal plans to hold a press conference dedicated to the agricultural crisis on Wednesday in Matignon, three days before the opening of the Salon de l’Agriculture while the sector is still boiling with anger and demands. The Prime Minister will discuss the rewriting of the bill suspended at the start of the crisis, as well as the monitoring and execution of the measures already announced by the government, Matignon said.
