On Sunday, January 28, 2024, Gérald Darmanin asked law enforcement officials to put in place “a significant defensive presence to prevent any blockades” by farmers in the Rungis market, the Paris region airports, and “to prohibit entry into Paris,” the Interior Ministry announced.
The FNSEA and Young Farmers of the Greater Paris Basin have announced a “siege of the capital for an indefinite duration” from Monday at 2 p.m.
In order to prevent these actions, the Minister of the Interior particularly convened at Place Beauvau the general directors of the police and the gendarmerie, Frédéric Veaux and Christian Rodriguez, as well as the Prefect of Police of Paris, Laurent Nuñez, an official in Darmanin’s entourage stated. According to RTL, Gérald Darmanin, and the Minister of Agriculture Marc Fesneau will also go to the interministerial crisis cell at Place Beauvau on Sunday evening.
The minister renewed his request for “restraint” on the part of law enforcement towards the farmers. “The posture remains the same: law enforcement must act with great restraint,” an official explained at Place Beauvau.
In the meantime, “seven blockades will take place around Paris, at the level of the roads that lead to the capital,” Clément Torpier, president of the Young Farmers of Île-de-France, said. According to him, “there will be a military organization, it is out of the question that a new accident occurs” after the one that cost the lives of a farmer and her daughter in Ariège.
Cyrille Milard, president of the FNSEA of Seine-et-Marne, expects a total of 500 tractors and at least 1,000 farmers at three blockades on the A4, A5, and A6 highways, Le Parisien reports. The syndicate’s goal is to hold out at least until Thursday, the date of an extraordinary European Council in which Emmanuel Macron is to participate.
