A few days before a national mobilization of farmers, scheduled for Monday, November 18, the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, again expressed his opposition on Friday to the free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur. “We must reject it”launched in particular on France Bleu, showing his “Concern that a free trade agreement will cause the destruction of entire sectors of our agriculture”.
This text, which would be the most important agreement signed by the European Union, aims to facilitate trade between Europe and South America by gradually eliminating almost all customs duties applied to trade between the two blocs.
“Tens of thousands of tons of beef will return with farming conditions that are not at all the same as those we impose on our own farmers for public health reasons”lamented on Friday the former Minister of Agriculture, who sees him as a “unfair competition”. On the eve of Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Latin America, where this free trade agreement will be discussed, Michel Barnier believes that “Neither the President of the Republic nor the Prime Minister that I am will accept this agreement in the current state of things”. “Mercosur, as it stands, is not an acceptable treaty”Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed in mid-October.
Mobilizations in Bouches-du-Rhône
This interview with Barnier comes three days before a farmers’ mobilization called by the majority union alliance FNSEA and Young Farmers starting Monday, when G20 members will meet in Rio de Janeiro. But starting Friday, farmers demonstrated in Bouches-du-Rhône. In Tarascón, about thirty farmers, who arrived around 6:30 in the morning, threw agricultural waste (manure, plastic sheets, etc.) with agricultural machinery in front of the tax center, whose plate was covered with a Brazilian flag, in which it was written “Embassy of Brazil”.
“Our mobilization is part of the preamble to the G20 that is being held in Brazil to express our opposition to an agreement with Mercosur. “This agreement would bring to the territory products that have been prohibited here for years.”Romain Blanchard, president of the FDSEA (majority union) of Bouches-du-Rhône, explained to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“They want to send us their waste, we send them ours! »he added. About twenty kilometers away, in Châteaurenard, farmers from the FDSEA and the Young Farmers blocked public access to the tax center with concrete and cement blocks, before dumping slurry in the late morning in front of the building. “The right to demonstrate exists, with respect for people and private property, but I am on the side of the farmers”said Michel Barnier at the microphone of France Bleu.
