First Tense scenes between police and angry farmers in France. Security forces this Wednesday afternoon arrested 79 militants of the Agricultural Union Rural Coordination, the third union organization of the first sector in the neighboring country. They did it later They managed to penetrate the inner part of the Rungis market for a short time, south of the Paris region. This infrastructure represents one of the sources of tension in the protests by French farmers, who blocked traffic on eight major highways and roads in the capital’s metropolitan area on Monday, in addition to more than a hundred road closures in other parts of the capital. country Gaul region.
“Some people entered on foot and caused damage,” a police source told Agence France-Presse. Rungis’ direction, Europe’s largest wholesale marketfiled a criminal complaint against the militants of this union organization. Its leaders and militants began a tractor march from Agen (southwest) on Monday. After playing cat and mouse with the police in recent days, they managed to reach Rungis this Wednesday, even without tractors. The “red line” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Another march with tractors, supported by another union, was a few kilometers away from the infrastructure, where security forces were deployed in significant numbers by Wednesday night.
Limits in the Macron Government’s Strategy
Unlike other protest movements led with an iron fist (the yellow vest rebellion or the mass protests of unions against pension reform), Emmanuel Macron’s government acts with prudence and a certain approval in the face of these agricultural mobilizations. There have been almost no arrests until this WednesdayDespite the force of some actions, such as the looting of Spanish trucks or the destruction of government buildings. “You cannot respond to suffering by sending riot police,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said last week.
This apparent understanding of the Macronist Executives is starting to crack with the anger of the rural areas. And the limits of his strategy are beginning to be seen. Agricultural unions are evaluating “Inadequate” ads What Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has done so far is mainly the withdrawal of the subsidy for rural diesel and other more timid measures. They increased the pressure on Macron, who will meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday to discuss issues such as the percentage of land left fallow and the percentage of agricultural land. Free trade agreement with Mercosur or agricultural imports of Ukraine.
More than 10,000 villagers mobilized
Although the media focus was on Paris, there were nearly 120 roadblocks across the country, some of which focused on affecting the operations of large-scale retailers. Mobilization has not diminished and this Wednesday Approximately 10,000 farmers were mobilized. Added to this are similar protests in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Romania and Italy. And soon it will probably happen in Spain.
“Approximately It’s a social movement of a magnitude we haven’t seen since the dairy crisis of 2009. Agricultural world historian and Lumière-Lyon 2 University professor Edouard Lynch, in his statements to El Periódico de Catalunya from the Prensa Ibérica group, recalls that there were already major mobilizations in France. Once the wrath of the precarious farming world is unleashed, it will not be easy to calm it.