VIDEO. Anger of the farmers. Robert Ménard hits hard on the ecologists and the government “which adds more under their pressure”

The mayor and president of Agglo, Robert Ménard, and his wife, MP Emmanuelle Ménard, were present in Béziers-Ouest, at 6:30 a.m., to show their support for farmers. Midi Libre – Michael Esdourrubailh

Robert Ménard, mayor of Béziers and his wife Emmanuelle Ménard, deputy for the sixth constituency of Hérault, were in support of the demonstrators, this Friday, January 26, in the early morning, at the departure of the Béziers convoy, at the west toll gate . 

Alongside the farmers who gathered this Friday, January 26 morning, at the west toll gate of Béziers, the Ménard couple expressed their support for the demonstrators and reiterated their demands. Particularly concerning environmental standards.

"Here we are a stone's throw from the Spanish border. There are a certain number of phytosanitary products which are prohibited, but authorized within 80 km!" launched Robert Ménard. And the MP adds : "I've been denouncing him for years. Since 2017, I have continued to say this to the National Assembly. They can't pretend to discover the problem."

They denounce an environmental mille-feuille

A European problem to which is added, as Emmanuelle Ménard reminds us, the national one of "the overtransposition. There are exemptions for certain countries (for the use of phytosanitary products, Editor's note),certainly, but France continues to add standards to European standards. Which means that at a given moment, the farmer finds himself confronted with ever more constraints."

The mayor and president of the Agglo summed up the environmental situation in a number and an image: "In 1965, the rural code is 700 pages long. The same document today is 3,000 pages long. He continued : " We will have to do some research to understand the regulations (environmental, Editor's note). This is not possible, the farmers can't take it anymore. They're not lazy: they just want to make a living from their work!"

The fault "of the ecologists"

Robert Ménard, the verb loud and clear, concluded the environmental grievances by tackling the environmentalists: "The farmers are angry with the Government for adding more under pressure from ecologists. I remind you that here, there are water problems, referring to the problems of lack of water and salinity of the soils cultivated near the Béziers river which is the ;#39;Orb. As soon as you want to build a dam on the Orb to prevent the salt from rising, or a dam in the hinterland to collect water, you have twenty ecologists from me who make you dear!"