Yesterday the French farmers carried out their threat and blocked the eight motorways entering and exiting Paris with their tractors, almost completely, in both directions. The chaotic situation in the capital region, which worsened by the hour, was joined by other expressway closures at dozens of strategic points throughout the country, including the A-9 highways and A-7, the main axis of communication with the Iberian Peninsula.
This is, once again, a major crisis for President Emmanuel Macron and for his new Government, headed by Gabriel Attal. The president of the union FNSEA already warned of “the week of all the dangers”. Indeed, less than six months before the start of the Olympic Games, France once again presents the image of a country in turmoil, in a permanent crisis of public order and where the free movement of people and goods cannot be guaranteed.
It was enough to consult the official website Sytadin, on the state of traffic in real time, to check the hell that meant driving, especially for trucks. The same thing happened when tuning in to the 107.7 station of the Vinci Autoroutes concessionaire. The announcers did not provide the scope to communicate all the places that were impassable.
Motorists and transporters who, despite the prevailing chaos, had no other option but to use their vehicle, were left with no other option but to resort to the secondary road network, with the extra time and traffic jams this entailed. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had urged on the eve to avoid travel as much as possible. Many followed the advice.
The Government does not want to use force to evict the tractors at the moment. Doing so is not easy. 15,000 agents were deployed as a precaution, but with the slogan of “great moderation”. Darmanin’s red lines were to maintain access to the large Parisian central market, Rungis, south of the capital, and to the two airports, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and Orly. In front of Rungis, anti-riot tanks and armored Centaure of the Gendarmerie were deployed, imposing vehicles that seem made for war. The minister also asked that foreign trucks not be attacked. He specifically mentioned the Spanish and Portuguese.
The references to the transports of the Iberian Peninsula were not accidental. In France there is a long tradition of attacking trucks and destroying their cargo, something that creates diplomatic tension and forces compensation to be managed. But the trade unionists know very well who they are protesting against. The vice-president of the FDSEA union in the Gard department, David Sève, highlighted the importance of the blockade on the A-9, near Nimes, because this highway “symbolizes the mass entry of fruit, vegetables and wine that it comes from Spain and it kills us”. More clearly, impossible, then.
Although the blockade in the capital is external for now, some farm leaders are not ruling out going further and entering the city, or at least the ring road, the Périphérique, so that Parisians feel even more effects, not only in deprivation but in alteration of daily life. For the Government this would be a red line that it cannot tolerate.
Cabinet spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot said after the extraordinary Council of Ministers that the Executive’s response will go beyond the concessions announced by Attal on Friday during a visit to a cow farm in Haute-Garonne, next to the Pyrenees “We need to go further”, added Thevenot.
The Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, revealed some of the reinforced measures that are planned to be applied with distributors to meet the demands of farmers and ranchers. In addition to guaranteeing the mechanisms to offer a fair price to producers, they want, for example, more controls on labelling, so that the real origin of the food is indicated. The aim is to help citizens become aware and buy national products.
Part of the farmers’ demands do not depend on Paris but on Brussels. That is why they demand more firmness from the president and the Government to defend their interests. In this context, Macron will meet on Thursday in Brussels with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to study whether some changes can be made to help calm spirits. The meeting will be on the sidelines of an extraordinary summit on the budget of the European Union. One of the complaints of French farmers is the massive arrival of Ukrainian products.
The opposition parties, from the radical left to the right and the extreme right, take advantage of the situation to express solidarity with the protest and attack the Government. Marine Le Pen dared to get on a tractor on Sunday in her northern electoral stronghold. Even a priest in a cassock appeared on a road near Agen, in Òlt-et-Garonne, one of the hotbeds of the revolt, to bless the convoy of tractors that left for Paris to join the “siege ” in the capital.
