After the announcements by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on Thursday, February 1, aimed at responding to the agricultural crisis, a large part of the blocking points were lifted on Friday, in accordance with the call from the FNSEA and Young Farmers (JA).
“The most visible moment of the crisis is clearly, taking into account the instructions given by a certain number of unions, rather behind us, but the issues are still before us,” the Minister of Agriculture admitted on Friday morning on Europe 1 , Marc Fesneau.
Contrary to the FNSEA, the JA and the Rural Coordination, the Confédération paysanne, the third agricultural union, called on its members to continue the mobilization. According to a police source at Agence France-Presse, "a few rare localized [blocking] points" wish to "maintain until Saturday" and "isolated groups" intend to "hold out until the Salon de l 'agriculture (February 24-March 3)'. The Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, plans to travel to Gard and Hérault on Friday evening “to present concrete measures” to support wine growers.
After the FNSEA and the JA, Thursday, during a press conference by their presidents, Arnaud Rousseau and Arnaud Gaillot, the Rural Coordination also “invited” its members to “suspend” their actions, Friday morning. “The farming world will remain mobilized in the run-up to the Agricultural Show and with the greatest vigilance regarding the progress expected at the national and European level,” specifies the second agricultural union in a press release on Friday morning.
In the same tone, Mr. Rousseau hopes to see the measures announced by Mr. Attal come to fruition in the coming weeks. “If ultimately we were not considered, or if all this was just a flash in the pan, we will start again,” he warned, explaining that “agricultural anger is transforming.”
Throughout the day, Friday, the blockages on the main roads were calmly dismantled by the farmers. In Hauts-de-France, all the barriers have been lifted and no action called by the regional section of the FNSEA is planned in the coming days, its president, Simon Ammeux, told AFP. “The ultimatum is given at the (Agricultural) Show,” he warns, stressing that farmers will be “very, very vigilant” in respecting the announcements.
In Occitania, the government's announcements on Thursday led to the lifting – immediate or near – of several dams, notably in Aveyron and Gers. “We are lifting the barriers above all because we have to return to work on the farms, after two weeks of historic mobilization. But, be careful, if the State takes us for goats, we will return to heavy-handed actions,” warns Lionel Candelon, leader of Rural Coordination in the Gers.
The tractors also left the A9 motorway in Nîmes. In Yvelines, on the N12, the number of vehicles involved in the blockage has decreased significantly since Thursday evening, going from around twenty to seven tractors on Friday morning, according to the police. The blockades on the A4 and the A5 in Seine-et-Marne have been lifted. Around Lyon, “all [blocking] points” were to be lifted on Friday at “2 p.m.,” FRSEA boss Michel Joux told AFP. The convoy of tractors that left Agen on Monday, at the call of the Rural Coordination, to disrupt the activity of the Rungis wholesale market, took the road towards the southwest.
Contrary to the FNSEA, the JA and the Rural Coordination, the Peasant Confederation called, from Thursday afternoon, to continue the mobilization with a demand: “A dignified income through the ban on purchasing our agricultural products below of our cost price. » The third agricultural union, classified on the left, had deplored in messages published on peasant.”
At the call of the union, around ten tractors and around forty demonstrators were still blocking the Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (Isère) tollbooth on the A43 on Friday. “We have not obtained what we are fighting for: an income worthy of the name,” Isabelle Douillon, a farmer from the Rhône, explained to Agence France-Presse, deploring that “agroecological standards risk breaking down. because the FNSEA has achieved its goals” on the use of pesticides.
Among the measures announced by the Prime Minister on Thursday, that providing for the “pause” of the application of the Ecophyto plan, which set a target of 50% reduction in the use of pesticides by 2030 (compared to 2015-2017), was widely criticized by elected environmentalists and environmental NGOs.
“France has chosen to act against reason, against history, against the ecological emergency,” criticized the NGO Agir pour l’environnement in a press release on Friday. For the head of the Green list in the European elections, Marie Toussaint, it is “a poisoned gift given to farmers”. For the “rebellious” MP for Seine-Saint-Denis, Clémentine Autain, it is a response “to the logic of the FNSEA, but not to the interest of the majority of farmers, and certainly not to the interest of the French for their health.”
According to government spokesperson, Prisca Thevenot, this pause can be explained by the desire of the executive to “move away from punitive ecology and into an ecology of solutions”. For the latter, the successive plans put in place since 2009 to reduce the use of pesticides “were ineffective”, because “they did not offer any solutions to support farmers”.
