Anger of farmers: the secretary general of Rural Coordination arrested in Paris then released

Farmers from Rural Coordination (CR), France’s second largest agricultural union, have set out from different regions to Paris and Essonne, where they intend to express their anger this week, but do not plan to important action this Sunday evening. However, the secretary general of the CR, Christian Convers, was arrested in the 17th arrondissement of the capital this Sunday afternoon.

“We are on the way, by tractor, but for the moment nothing is happening, because gendarmes are placed far from Paris on the roads to wait for us,” Patrick Legras, gatekeeper, told AFP in the afternoon. -spokesperson for Rural Coordination, and president of CR Hauts-de-France.

Farmers reportedly refused to take off their yellow hats

According to a police source, at 4 p.m., around ten tractors, nine light vehicles and a campervan coming from Loir-et-Cher and Eure-et-Loir were progressing towards the Paris region, via the D 927 and the D2020, at Châteaudun (Eure-et-Loir).

“Voluntarily, we have divided the organization of this day and the days to come between only five people,” indicated the president of the movement Véronique Le Floc’h on RMC on Sunday morning. “Everyone is responsible for where farmers gather, whether they are in a car or a tractor.”

“A priori, we are prohibited from entering Paris” on Sunday evening, “we obey, we will get in place during the night,” Christian Convers, secretary general of the organization, told AFP. Customary of punchy actions, the CR wishes to obtain guarantees from the Prime Minister for the defense of agriculture focused on the protection of small farmers whom it considers crushed by free trade.

Christian Convers was to participate in Paris in the evening in a gathering of farmers at Place du Brazil, in the 17th arrondissement, a place symbolically chosen to denounce the recent trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur.

“We have a series of different health, economic, geopolitical and climatic crises”

According to an AFP journalist on site, eleven farmers present at Place du Brazil were asked to take off their yellow hats, which they refused to do. According to a police source, the organizer of the rally was arrested and the other demonstrators “accompanied outside Paris”. Christian Convers was released immediately, announced Véronique le Floc’h on BFMTV.

The CR’s actions come on the eve of the launch of the campaign for the 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 currently ultra-dominant according to the results of the last election of 2019. The four main unions must be received at Matignon on January 13.

“Since Covid, we have accumulated and chained together the various health, economic, geopolitical and climatic crises, we are facing inflation in our production costs and the prices paid to our producers are not keeping up, and we have many farmers in distress,” declared Véronique le Floc’h on RMC.

According to her, 30,000 farms have received aid over the past year, to the tune of 9,000 euros, “when the ministry itself says that more than 150,000 farms are in financial distress”.