Blockage of the RN10, snail operation on the RN4… Farmers from Rural Coordination are trying to “go to Paris”

Before a meeting scheduled for January 13 with François Bayrou, the farmers of the Rural Coordination who denounce the agreement with Mercosur and demand better remuneration, are trying to go to Paris and Lyon this Monday. A mobilization which comes just before the elections to the chambers of agriculture where the second agricultural union hopes to gain influence in particular against the FNSEA.

Since Sunday, a few convoys of tractors have set off from different regions of France. But so far, none have returned to the capital. “Our tractors have left, but in the places where they are grouped together, the gendarmes prevent them from moving,” declared Christian Convers, secretary general of the movement, Sunday evening.

Prohibited gatherings

If, this Monday morning, a snail operation on the RN4 east of Paris is underway, the police have placed machines around a private property where nearly a hundred tractors are gathered in Orveau in Essonne. Same thing in Yvelines on the RN10 towards Perray-en-Yvelines since 4:45. According to a police source, 8 tractors and 15 vehicles are on site, like the police.

The Paris police headquarters has banned undeclared gatherings from Sunday 6 p.m. to Monday 12 p.m. in a large area of ​​central Paris, including in particular Matignon and the Ministry of Agriculture, “considering the calls to demonstrate on January 5, 2025 launched by an agricultural union with a view to blocking the capital.” The Val-de-Marne prefecture did the same around the Rungis market and on the A6 motorway.

On Sunday, Christian Convers was himself briefly arrested by the police late in the afternoon in Paris, as he arrived by car to participate in a symbolic gathering at Place du Brazil, in protest against the recent trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur countries. An agreement denounced by French farmers to favor the import of products at low costs and with lower environmental standards than those imposed on them. “They released me, telling me that I had to leave Paris, which would mean that we would no longer even be allowed to walk on the sidewalk in Paris? “, he noted, adding: “We are not coming to block Paris, moreover we have agreed not to return to the capital on Sunday evening, returning from vacation, we are coming by tractor to express our concerns, and we need a base where we can regroup.” And to conclude: “If no base is granted to us by the authorities, this will turn into a confrontation that we do not want.”

Elections to the Chambers of Agriculture in the crosshairs

Basically, farmers are asking “to have the same production standards as other countries, we are asking for reductions in controls on farms and increases in controls in supermarkets where we find products that do not respect our standards,” said a farmer who grows cereals and beets in Andelys (Eure). “We found sugar and flour coming from Ukraine” in supermarkets, while the manufacturer who buys sugar beets from us is asking us to reduce our production volumes by 15% this year, and prices at per tonne will increase to 23 euros in 2025 compared to 36-38 euros in 2024.

If the demands of farmers over the past year have not all been implemented due to the waltz of governments during this period, these actions of Rural Coordination are also “political” on the eve of the launch of the campaign for elections to the chambers of agriculture. These elections, organized from January 15 to 31, will determine the new balance of power between agricultural unions, among which the FNSEA is ultra-dominant according to the last election of 2019.

The Minister of Agriculture Annie Génevard in the JDD on Sunday recalled that “Guaranteeing decent remuneration (for farmers) is the mother of battles”. She also assured that on the EU-Mercosur agreement that the process was “far from over” and that the government “was going to fight like crazy against this bad agreement”.