The Young Farmers union announced this Saturday its intention to block access to Paris, starting Sunday night and throughout next week, to pressure the French Government to make more concessions to improve the lives of farmers.
In a statement to the BFMTV network, the national administrator of the Young Farmers, Maxime Buizard, said that “the idea is that no truck will be able to supply the capital next week.” “If necessary, we will maintain it as long as it takes for the hardships in the capital to be felt,” Buizard added. “It will be an action of at least five days to make Parisians understand that they need farmers to live.”
For the union leader, the announcements made on Friday by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal at a cow farm in the south of France are not enough. “It provides responses but they are not adequate given the amplitude of the movement,” Buizard added. However, the union will lift the blockades on the highways near the capital today. It will be a tactical movement, a respite, to regain strength and proceed to the blockade starting Sunday night.
It is possible that the Government has other rabbits in its hat to defuse the crisis, other concessions. Attal carried out a good image operation on Friday, standing in a rural area and then addressing those blocking the A64 motorway between Toulouse and Biarritz. The prime minister managed to convince the local protest leader, Jérôme Bayle, to end the action.
In addition to canceling the planned increase in the tax on diesel for agricultural use, Attal promised other improvements in compensation for pests that affect livestock and the simplification of the overwhelming bureaucracy of permits and regulations that farmers endure. He also reiterated that France will continue to oppose the ratification of the free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur, as it considers that it damages the interests of the sector in France.
