“We must always be wary of the anger of farmers”: the movement is spreading across Europe and threatens to gain momentum in France

“We must always be wary of the anger of farmers”: the movement is spreading across Europe and threatens to gain momentum in France

Les agriculteurs bloquaient vendredi l'autoroute entre Toulouse et Saint-Gaudens. MAXPPP – NATHALIE SAINT AFFRE

Le phénomène touche plusieurs pays et inquiète de plus en plus le pouvoir en France. Emmanuel Macron demande aux préfets d'aller au contact des agriculteurs en colère.

The anger of farmers spreads to Occitanie. Since Thursday evening, farmers have been blocking several roads around Toulouse. Friday morning, workers discovered windows blown out by an explosion in an empty building of the Regional Directorate of Environment, Planning and Housing, in Carcassonne. With two tags “CAV” (Wine Action Committee).

The farmers have also launched, for several weeks, an operation “We're walking on our heads” which consists of turning over municipal road signs. Anger spreads. If the sources of discontent differ between European countries, farmers agree to deplore the increase in production costs and an inflation of environmental standards.

“We must always be wary of the anger of farmers”: the movement is spreading across Europe and threatens to gain momentum in France

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"Constraints of all kinds – legal, environmental, economic, social too… – which weigh more and more on the sector are the source of incomprehension and long-simmering anger, explains Dominique Andolfatto, professor of political science, specialist in social movements, who edited the book Citizens in the Health Crisis (Classiques Garnier).

"Our income is degraded", summarizes, on France Info, Christophe Raffit, cattle breeder in Larroque (Haute -Garonne).

Macron's instructions

This increasingly noisy exasperation worries Emmanuel Macron. Can it reflect on the European elections ? The president of the RN, Jordan Bardella, has already taken up the subject, even calling on Friday for a "state of emergency& ;quot;, during a meeting in Matignon with Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. 

No question, therefore, for the executive to leave this ground to the extreme right. During his press conference on Tuesday evening, Emmanuel Macron committed to reducing "useless standards". But the profession is waiting for "a real vision of the future".

"We must always be wary of the anger of farmers, warns Christophe Barbier, editorialist at BFMTV, author of the book Peuple de anger (Fayard). It goes beyond the simple crisis of their profession to relay the discontent of all rural people and a deep identity anxiety. The history of France is punctuated by such eruptions. We must remember the great Jacquerie of 1356, the revolt of the Tuchins in 1382, Jean Petit and the Croquants of 1643, the clog makers of Sologne in 1658, etc. Without forgetting the Breton Red Bonnets of 1675… and 2013! And let's think of the Green Shirts of Henri Dorgères, a powerful party of the 1930s. A peasant who begins to demonstrate is often the vanguard of a general revolt.&quot ; 

"There is a kind of clash between two worlds"

The FNSEA is, moreover, studying the possibility of a national protest movement. "The anger that is rising is not not unlike that of the “yellow vests", reflecting the rupture between a rural France, a France of the concrete and everyday and political and economic elites who would be “globalized”, observes Dominique Andolfatto. There is a sort of clash between two worlds. But at the moment it seems like a struggle between the earthen pot and the iron pot. And it is when there is a breakdown in dialogue, deafness of the leading groups, divisions, that situations can become insurrectional." < /p>

Emmanuel Macron understood this well. The Head of State instructed the prefects to go this weekend to meet farmers and their representative organizations. He wants them to discuss directly the issues they express, as close as possible to the field, as the Minister of Agriculture will do this Saturday, we were told, Friday evening, in the entourage of the Head of State.

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