Anger of farmers: at the Bagnols roundabout, several generations express their “fed up”

Vendredi 26 janvier, les agriculteurs ont vidé un camion de ses palettes de courgettes et de poivrons espagnols. Cécile Bodarwé

Vendredi 26 janvier, des agriculteurs du Gard rhodanien ont occupé le rond-point de l'Europe à Bagnols-sur-Cèze et ont filtré la circulation en contrôlant la cargaison de camions.

They met on Friday January 26 on the Europe roundabout in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, some "tired" of their participation, the day before, in the big farmers' demonstration in Nîmes. All day long, around thirty of them, wine growers and market gardeners from the Bagnols sector, filtered the traffic, letting emergencies pass, and checked the trucks.

"We look at the papers to find out what they're carrying and where it goes" explains one of them. Often with the difficulty of the language barrier, when the driver is Polish, Swedish, or Spanish. 

Equipped with pliers or a crowbar, when a truck driver refuses to open his "fridge" , a handful of farmers checked the loading of several foreign trucks. At the end of the morning, a first truck, Spanish, was targeted. With the help of a tractor and a cable, pallets of zucchini and peppers were pulled, crashing onto the road . "We are not here to destroy food, but we destroy products that contain pesticides" assures Fabien, a farmer from Gard. On the zucchini label, the mention organic but "Spanish organic, these are not the same standards as here" comments another.

A slightly injured farmer

"I support the movement in substance, but we must be very vigilant about the form" worries the Bagnols security assistant, Christian Baume, present on the scene. Some time later, a farmer was slightly injured: a truck having forced the dam ran over his foot, before fleeing.
The first deputy Maxime Couston also came to support the movement “in a personal capacity”, as the son of a wine grower. "There are fewer and fewer winegrowers, the cellars are closing".     

Around the Europe roundabout, the "fed up" different generations of farmers speak out. "I have been a winegrower since 1977 and I don't want to stop!" says Alain Raoux, winegrower and cereal grower from Pouzilhac. "This time, we are all affected by the difficulties: the wine growers, the cereal growers, the arborists, the breeders… That's why it's so bad!" explains the sixty-year-old who confides that he still has "100,000 euros of credit". 

Denis Clavel, retired winemaker, whose daughter has taken over the family business in Saint-Gervais, notes that there are "more and more ;#39;inconsistencies. There are constraints, punitive controls, guilt and no support. Speculation added to the lack of consideration for our professions, that's why we are here!" 

Didier Allegret, fruit and vegetable producer, in Laudun-l'Ardoise, lists all the difficulties encountered: "Covid, drought, hail, the increase in the price of oil# 39;electricity, GNR (non-road diesel)… and falling sales prices. We can no longer pay our bills. To get by, the Gard farmer had to sell two tractors and a harvesting machine this year. "I hope that the movement will last".    

"We've already swallowed enough pills"

Younger, Fabien believes that “as long as the French do not regain their purchasing power, farmers will not be able to live& quot;. His young farm worker, Guillaume, was categorical on Friday, before the Prime Minister's announcements, expected in the evening: "what Gabriel Attal is going to propose, it won't change anything. We've already swallowed enough pills.

A few hours later, after the Prime Minister's intervention, a farmer said: "We had filed a hundred grievances, he responded in ten points: everything is said". The movement should therefore continue.

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