French farmers once again attempted to block the capital on Monday – the latest in a continuing quest to get better pay and work conditions, ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister Francois Bayrou scheduled for next week.
About 200 farmers and 50 tractors made their way towards Paris on Monday, and others moved on Lyon, though none was able to enter the capital
The members of the Coordination rurale union are protesting against the Mercosur free trade agreement with South American countries, agreed on the European Union last month, despite France's objections, and they are demanding better compensation.
The country’s second largest farmer’s union believes that 13 January date set for a meeting with Prime Minister François Bayrou is too far off, and they want to make sure their demands are not forgotten, as the new government moves forward with budget negotiations and new legislation.
“Their concerns are perfectly understandable,” Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard said on TF1 television Monday, though insisting that the farmers must not block Paris, and their protest must not be violent.
“One does not block, one does not disrupt,” she said, especially the day that students go back to school after the end-of-the year holiday break.
Around ten tractors and 15 cars forced their way onto the N10 highway before being blocked by police, while another convoy was blocked in the Essonne.
Smaller convoys continued on smaller roads towards Paris, and in the Rhone, near Lyon.
Genevard said that they would not be received by Bayrou sooner than the date planned next week, though she said that the long-awaited agriculture reform bill would be among the first legislation presented to the National Assembly after the budget.
The government is hoping to get a budget passed next month, Budget Minister Amelie de Montchalin said on Monday,
“So that at the very latest by the end of February French people can get out of this uncertainty and deadlock, so that people such as the farmers and others can have more clarity,” Montchalin told France 2 public television.
The farmers’ convoys mark the start of the election campaign for the chambers of agriculture, to be held 15-31 January, and whose results will determine which unions have power in negotiations with the government.
(with AFP)
