French Farmers’ Union announces continuation of demonstrations but with different tactics
The Young Farmers (JA), like other agricultural unions, have announced they will continue the movement after the latest announcements by Gabriel Attal, but will change their approach. There will be fewer blockages this weekend, but new actions next week. “In general we are going to lift the blockades here by [Saturday] noon to resume them in the early part of next week,” Pierrick Horel, general secretary of the Young Farmers, announced on RMC.
They have decided to change the method and organize the blockade of Paris and the inner suburbs, “Maxime Buizard, national administrator of the Young Farmers, announced on BFM TV. “The idea is that there will be no trucks able to feed the capital,” he added, before explaining: “It will not be an operation of 12 or 15 hours, but an action over the long term, at least over five days, which will make Parisians understand that they need farmers to live and that the capital is not self-sufficient.”
Access to the capital, already targeted by actions at the end of the week, will be cut off from the rest of France next week? Not so sure. Pierrick Horel clarified that the action on Paris is not yet “decided”. “Today for Young Farmers and FNSEA, we need to calibrate and evaluate this,” he said, indicating that targeting Paris is “obviously” on the table.
In the meantime, in order to refine the strategy and mobilize farmers again, a large part of the blockades was lifted in Ile-de-France. The movement is also widespread across the entire country: according to the gendarmerie, there were fewer than 40 actions on Saturday morning affecting 28 departments out of a total of 101. The lifting of the A64 in Haute-Garonne, where a blockade had been initiated at the beginning of the week by the breeder Jerome Bayle, was completed on Saturday. But other highways remained closed, especially in the south.
After the measures announced by the Prime Minister, the trade union movement remains generally united. The FNSEA wants to go “further” and the Confédération paysanne, the third agricultural trade union, which leans left, wants to “continue the mobilization”.
