a majority of deputies validates the government’s opposition to the treaty

The deputies spoke widely against the free trade agreement negotiated between the European Union and the Mercosur countries, by 484 votes in favor and 70 against, after a vote in the National Assembly, on Tuesday, November 26. This non-binding vote occurs a week after the start of the mobilization of farmers opposed to this trade agreement that only the European Commission is authorized to negotiate for the Twenty-seven.

In the chamber, the Minister of Agriculture Annie Genevard stated that “under current conditions”The draft agreement between the EU and the Mercosur countries does not guarantee “fair conditions of competition for our farmers”. However it would be “It is irresponsible for France to oppose in advance and in principle any free trade agreement”he added, thanking “the Polish council of ministers decided to vote against”.

A good part of the left and the National Group fear, however, that this executive opposition to the treaty, as it is and not definitively, is not enough. Ursula Von Der Leyen, President of the European Commission, “We will be able to rush and in the end Mercosur will be left”warned Marc Fesneau, head of the MoDem group and former Minister of Agriculture, during the conference of presidents of the Assembly.

“This agreement will be the final straw that will explode the anger of French voters if the Head of State does not take decisive action with the support of French deputies”warned the breeder Jérôme Bayle, protagonist of last winter’s mobilization, invited by two deputies in the chamber.

Actions in France

On the ground, farmers continued to step up their actions. In Strasbourg, around fifty tractors belonging to farmers from the Rural Coordination, the second largest agricultural union, were blocked by the police one kilometer from the European Parliament, where they wanted to express their opposition to the agreement.

“We have prohibited insecticides, herbicides, transgenic seeds, products that we consider dangerous for human health, and all these South American countries are working with that, with great deforestation. “It’s aberrant.”declared Cyril Hoffmann, from Côte d’Or.

In Gers, about forty farmers threw tires, mud and fertilizer in front of the Danone facilities in Villecomtal-sur-Arros, also at the request of the CR, with the intention of blocking the platform during the night, a photographer from Agence France found. . -Press.

For its part, the majority alliance FNSEA-Young Farmers (JA) has launched new actions throughout France until Thursday, with the aim of “anything that hinders the lives of farmers”in particular the administrations (prefectures, water agencies, etc.), stated the president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, on France 2.

“Stop the newspapers, we are fed up” EITHER “Fed up”proclaimed posters hanging on tractors heading to blockade the administrative city of Lille. In Perpignan, a hundred farmers dressed in black marched behind a coffin towards the prefecture. A dozen tractors installed a filtering barrier at a roundabout in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, where a vehicle transporting meat of Irish origin was blocked.

“We found Irish meat in a truck that was going to be delivered by McDonald’s.” co-president of the JA of Lot-et-Garonne, Aurélien Tuffery, told an AFP correspondent. “We blocked it and asked the McDonald’s manager to come and explain to us. »

The FNSEA and the JA call for mobilization until Thursday

At midday, some 660 farmers were carrying out around twenty actions in 15 departments, according to the latest report from the authorities, which mentions, in particular, concentrations in Rouen (Seine-Maritime) or Laon (Aisne), a filter dam in Poitiers and operations in supermarket logistics platforms such as in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier (Isère).

Less than a year after a historic mobilization, farmers believe they have not made enough concrete progress. If the first two unions share demands – such as being able to use pesticides currently authorized in Europe and prohibited in France due to their toxicity -, they occupy the ground dispersedly, in a tense climate a few weeks before their professional elections.

The Rural Coordination, which hopes to break the hegemony of the FNSEA in the chambers of agriculture during the January elections, has multiplied maneuvers, such as the blockade of the port of Bordeaux, the looting of an office of the French Biodiversity Office in the Creuse or interrupting a trip by Arnaud Rousseau to Agen.

Far from the duel between the first two unions, the Paysanne Confederation, the third representative union, also continues its mobilizations against Mercosur, with actions in the Dordogne.