At the opening of the Agricultural Show, Emmanuel Macron going through farmers | EUROtoday

Published on : 02/24/2024 – 03:59Modified : 02/24/2024 – 07:31

5 minutes

A welcoming committee of farmers slept in entrance of the Agricultural Show earlier than Emmanuel Macron's go to on Saturday February 24 to a minefield, because the anger is now crystallizing on his individual after the Elysian blunder across the invitation of Earth Uprisings, an environmentalist collective reviled by many operators.

In entrance of the Salon in Paris, on the esplanade the place the bulk union, the FNSEA, is situated, the evening was calm. Some operators have slept on straw, and the mines are drained. A gaggle of farmers from the competing union, Rural Coordination, arrived round 6 a.m.

The Head of State will come to inaugurate the Agricultural Show as presidents have often finished since Jacques Chirac, “but not like every year”, warned Friday night the boss of the bulk agricultural union FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau. Implied, it is not going to be a stroll within the park free from boos and demonstrations of mistrust.

“It is certain that Macron risks being whistled in the aisles but we must move forward, we must continue to discuss to get things done, concretely,” his vice-president, Luc Smessaert, confides to AFP , farmer in Oise.

The head of state plans to satisfy the leaders of “all agricultural unions before the official opening” then “to contact all those who want to discuss as I do every year”, in accordance with a message on X.

Arnaud Rousseau warned the president “that before marching and taking photos, it was first necessary to announce to the peasants what they were waiting for and what they had been demanding for weeks”, throughout a speech to his troops of the FNSEA and the allied union Young Farmers (JA) within the night in entrance of the doorways of the present, Porte de Versailles in Paris.

The demonstrators closely whistled the president's identify. Under an indication studying “Manu Tchao!”, Romain Garnier explains: “If things don’t change, he has to leave. With what he’s given us so far, it’s chao.”

“Frankly,” says an FNSEA govt, “we have no control over anything. They are boiling hot.”

Arnaud Rousseau and his counterpart Véronique Le Floc'h, president of Rural Coordination, the 2nd French agricultural union, nonetheless agreed to see the president – “if he can come back”, added Véronique Le Floc'h.

“Arm of honor”

The disaster, which had been brewing because the fall, exploded from January 18, main to 2 weeks of freeway blockages, lastly lifted on February 1. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal made a number of bursts of bulletins on dozens of topics: pesticides, requirements, administrative simplifications, help to breeders or wine growers, controls in supermarkets in opposition to fraud on the French origin of merchandise, new regulation enshrining agriculture as a elementary curiosity of the nation…

Environmental NGOs denounce an ecological decline, particularly on pesticides whose use will not be measured as earlier than, however their speech in opposition to intensive agriculture, like that of the anti-globalization union Confédération paysanne, is barely audible within the face of the existential protests of farmers .

They agreed to unblock the roads as a result of they admire that their calls for are beginning to be taken under consideration by the manager. But they proceed to demand fast and concrete actions to enhance their revenue and meet their demand for dignity.

The members of the bulk unions, particularly within the main cereal crops, have been particularly livid to be taught that the Élysée wished to have them debate on Saturday, amongst different NGOs, with the novel collective of the Uprisings of the Earth, which had illustrated in March 2023 throughout a day of clashes round a synthetic water reservoir development website in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) and which the federal government didn’t dissolve.

“The president, he gave us a huge arm of honor yesterday so, what we are waiting for now is for him to announce things,” defined Vincent Bouvrain, a farmer in Seine-et-Marne, within the Parisian demonstration of the FNSEA.

The thought of ​​a significant debate, alongside the strains of these organized on the time of the “yellow vest” disaster, due to this fact got here to naught, resulting in its cancellation on Friday night. It stays to be seen how lengthy Emmanuel Macron will “contact” the individuals on the Show.

With AFP