A signal from the government to stop farmers’ protests. After yet another day of demonstrations, with thousands of tractors mobilized throughout the France to block the main road arteries, the new prime minister Gabriel Attal announced a series of measures that should benefit the world of agriculture. The Prime Minister, on the occasion of his mission to Montastruc-de-Salies, in the department of Haute-Garonne (80 km south-east of Toulouse), Attal announced, among other things, that he wanted to put an end to “the increase in non-road diesel” destined for agriculture. The government package will consist of ten measures: “The prefects will bring farmers together to see what can be simplified. At government level, we will see what we can simplify, with the aim of a bill on agricultural orientation.”
Attal announced various administrative simplification measures, addressing one of the main reasons for anger in the countryside: the bureaucracy that delays reimbursements and compensation and puts small businesses in difficulty that are already struggling amidst new rules, ecological dictates and European standards. One of the examples often cited by protesters is the refund on the full tank of diesel for agricultural vehicles, which instead of occurring automatically and directly at the pump, forces workers to keep receipts and receipts and to sign a written declaration for each refueling.
The most loyal of Emmanuel Macron he also mentioned easier procedures for cleaning agricultural watercourses and the deadlines for judicial appeal. He then guaranteed that the Paris government “will pronounce three very heavy sanctions against three companies that violate the so-called ‘Egalim laws’ to protect farmers’ income, as part of the complex negotiations with the world of industry and large-scale retail trade. “The objective – he said – is clear: to enforce Egalim everywhere, without exceptions”. He then announced a strengthening of controls and promised to exert “maximum pressure” on the ongoing negotiations between all the actors. He then wanted to reiterate that “France opposes it very clearly” to the signing of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement. Finally, he announced “emergency aid” of 50 million euros to respond to the difficulties of the organic supply chain. And it will “double the emergency fund” to support farmers in Brittany affected by storm Ciaran. He therefore also announced a specific plan for viticulture.
After the announcements, protesters began to lift blockades in several cities: “Go home,” was the call. The mobilization particularly concerned centers such as Bordeaux, Montpellier or Lyon. “The official indication is to return home”, he declared to the France Press a spokesperson for the Fnsea union from Hérault, the Montpellier region, in the south of the country, while the reaction of the union at the national level is still awaited. According to initial estimates by the union and the Jeunes Agriculteurs (Ja), they were around 72,000 farmers mobilized today in France to express the anger of the rural world.
Tension in the country remains very high. According to the spokeswoman for the Confédération paysanne union, Laurence Marandola, Attal’s announcements are “largely insufficient” and farmers will “maintain their mobilization.” “It won’t necessarily be with road blocks”, he added, there will be “different forms, on the streets, on roundabouts, in front of supermarkets, we will find creative ways of telling the government that it’s not enough”. A gesture that could even represent more than a concession was Attal’s decision to go to the evening roadblock on the A64 in Carbonne, near Toulouse, among hay bales and barricades. That’s where the protest was born and grew, that’s where Jérôme Bayle, recognized as the leader of the agitation for initiating the first blockade, harangued the demonstrators for the first time with the yellow caps symbolizing the agricultural revolt. The highway will reopen in the morning. “This is what we fought for, and now let’s say enough to all this,” shouted Bayle, visibly satisfied, amid the applause of the demonstrators.