Two agricultural unions, FDSEA and JA-Île de France, yesterday called to block access to Paris today starting at two in the afternoon. It is a form of additional pressure in the face of the planned announcement by the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, of some measures to try to appease the anger of the farmers.
Attal will communicate this during a trip outside Paris (it is unknown where) to meet face to face with those protesting. The plans to disrupt traffic around the capital are quite precise.
They talk, for example, about the A-1 motorway, which heads north and passes through Charles de Gaulle airport; the A-13, which connects with Normandy; the A-6, which heads towards Lyon, and the A-10, the most direct communication route towards Clermont-Ferrand and the Central massif.
The mobilizations continued yesterday in numerous parts of France. It is not always a total blockage of traffic, but rather a “filter” so that vehicles reduce speed and can notice the protest. In other cases they carry out so-called snail operations, in which the tractors circulate in all lanes and force very slow traffic.
Some supermarkets were attacked yesterday with manure and straw bales. In Agen, in the Lot-et-Garonne department, one of the epicenters of the protest, the target yesterday was the railway station, after the prefectural headquarters was besieged on Wednesday.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, yesterday received with a red carpet the representatives of the 30 agricultural organizations selected to participate in the long-awaited "strategic dialogue" on the future of agriculture, a sector on a war footing in the north. to southern Europe for different reasons.
“There is a growing polarization in all issues related to agriculture,” but “we can overcome it through dialogue,” said the German at the first meeting of the reflection group, held in the same room where the college of European commissioners. Von der Leyen announced the initiative in her last State of the Union speech in September, the first of the four he has given so far in which he mentioned the sector. “Thank you for providing us with food day after day,” he said, while anger grew in the street against the environmental measures promoted by the EU or the effects of the entry of tariff-free agri-food products from Ukraine.
The work is chaired by Professor Peter Strohschneider, who has already led a similar exercise in Germany that he himself considers a success, although his recommendations have not yet been put into practice and, since December, the sector has taken to the streets to protest the Government's intention to eliminate tax aid on fuel. The reasons for the agricultural unrest, cholera in many cases, vary, but the group has agreed on four major issues: farmers' income, the reconciliation of climate and nature conservation policies with agricultural production, innovation and the impact throughout the food chain.
Their conclusions will be reflected in a report that they will present at the end of the summer and that will have an “indirect impact” on the design of the next European policies that affect the sector. Among the participants are large agricultural associations, such as COPA-Cogeca, representatives of young farmers and consumers or Eucommerce.
The launch of this exercise has been delayed longer than some countries would have liked until it coincides with the pre-campaign for the elections to the European Parliament, in which polls predict an advance of the far right, which is very present in the protests in the sector. Von der Leyen herself could run in these elections, with a view to being the head of the European People's Party list and presiding over the Commission again. Her spokesperson has denied any “conflict of interest”, despite her family-in-law campaigning as “the European Farmers Party”.
