France’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal tried to head off fresh farmers’ protests on Wednesday as they resumed direct action, including dumping produce and blocking roads to pursue their demands.
Attal promised to elevate agriculture “to the status of a fundamental national interest,” outlining an agriculture bill designed to address farmers’ grievances.
Already last month, farmers had staged violent protests across the country before their unions called for their suspension following government promises of reforms.
But this weekend’s national agriculture fair has become a de facto deadline for the government to meet its demands.
Even as Attal spoke on Wednesday, farmers blocked a roughly 70-kilometer (43-mile) stretch of a highway in the country’s south.
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On Tuesday, farmers had blocked the transport of milk in protest at wholesale prices they say are too low and set tires on fire at roundabouts.
In some of the angriest protests in Europe, French farmers were out in force for more than a week in January, using tractors to block key roads to Paris and other major highways across the country.
Their grievances include burdensome environmental rules, the threat of cheap imports from outside the EU and measures to tackle the low income many of them still suffer.
“What did the farmers want”
On Wednesday, Attal announced that an upcoming law would set out the measures “in black and white”.
He said he aimed to achieve “agricultural and food sovereignty” for France and to build on dozens of promises already made to protesting farmers since the start of the crisis.
It will also create a new basis for negotiations between producers and wholesalers to improve farmers’ income, a key issue for the industry.
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Already, payments under the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have been made much faster than at this time last year, he said.
Many millions of euros have been paid in emergency aid, especially to livestock farmers, he added.
France will also stop using its current national indicator for pesticide reduction — which farmers’ unions wanted to get rid of — using an EU indicator instead, he said.
“This is what the farmers wanted,” he said.
This measure was decided despite protests from environmental organizations.
But the government stuck to its goal of reducing pesticide use by 50 percent by 2030, Attal said.
The government will also make it easier for farmers to obtain temporary visas for foreign seasonal agricultural workers and continue to waive payroll taxes on almost all seasonal farm work, he added.
Tractor for Paris
FNSEA and the Young Farmers Association (JA) had already announced that they would lead a tractor column at the agricultural exhibition in Paris on Friday, ahead of the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron.
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Macron will visit the Salon de l’Agriculture on Saturday, as is traditional for French presidents.
Farmers’ unions have made it clear that they want ironclad assurances that their grievances have been addressed before then.
“The time has come for political decisions,” Arnaud Rousseau, head of the largest farmers’ union FNSEA, said late Tuesday. “Expectations are high.”
Source: AFP