the story of the day

Under the slogan "France, do you still want your peasants? Farmers demonstrated in many cities, Tuesday, October 8 at the call of two unions, the FNSEA and Young Farmers. Blocked road axes, parades of tractors in front of the prefectures punctuated this first day of demonstration. A new appeal is launched for October 22nd.

Sense of rejection, opposition to areas of non-treatment with pesticides or trade agreements: farmers expressed their rage, Tuesday, October 8 in many French cities.

"Righteous farming"

The purpose of these events: "To show oneself on the roads, to pull at the roundabouts, to address the representatives of the State"said Xavier Benoist, cereal, during a blockage at Château-Thierry (Aisne). Mobilization was important in the middle of the day in the East of France. Across the Bas-Rhin, more than 500 tractors blocked five major roads, mainly on the A35 and A4 motorways, while about 120 tractors blocked the junction between the A35 and A36 in the Haut-Rhin. .

" The problem is political, on the one hand we have a speech that talks aboutAgriculture strong, alive and on the other we are stunned with endless standards, not to mention free trade treaties and the agribashing, while we are Agriculture recognized as virtuous ", denounced Fabrice Couturier, president of the FDSEA of Moselle where the farmers organized dams in Metz, Thionville and Sarrebourg.

In the Pays de la Loire, theLaval-Le Mans (A81), Angers-Paris (A11) and Nantes-Rennes were targeted by the protesters.

In Normandy, several rallies took place in the Channel and Calvados in particular. AT Caen, anear a passage on the ring road, they settled around midday, Place Foch, in the city center. To stay there part of the afternoon.

Blockages also in Brittany. In the Côtes-d'Armor, farmers found themselves on the RN12 in the Brest-Rennes direction, in Plounévez-Moëdec, near Beg ar C'hra. In Ille-et-Vilaine, dFarmer filter dams took place around Rennes and filtered traffic on the Rennes-Vannes axis.

In Auvergne, the A75 between Clermont-Ferrand and Montpellier was cut for several hours and filter dams were set up in Aurillac in the Cantal and Riom and Beaumont in the Puy-de-Dome. The cities of Pau in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Angoulême in Charente, Poitiers in the Vienne, and Vesoul in Haute-Saône were also affected. In Haute-Vienne, the farmers installed a filtering dam on the A20 at Limoges, before going to supermarkets "Hyper U" and "Intermarket"to perform product traceability checks.- Non-processing areas –

"We are accused of being polluters"

Among the latest standards considered, pesticide non-treatment areas (ZNT) have set fire to the powders."The ban 10 meters from the houses, that represents in the Aisne 10,000 uncultivated hectares, that means the equivalent of 80,000 tons of unprocessed wheat, or 1.5 million euros of lack for farmers", explained Benoit Davin, FDSEA referent for the district of Soissons.

"In our fields, we use phytosanitary products, but in very small doses, with really rules that are very strict. When we see everything that is said on social networks like what we are polluters, it's incomprehensible "exclaimed Marc-Henri Fages, a member of the JA in the Tarn, while some 50 Tarn farmers blocked the viaduct of the Viaur on the border between the Tarn and Aveyron and hung models of farmers along the rail of the viaduct to symbolize suicide in the agricultural world.In Lot-et-Garonne, it is the Rural Coordination (majority in the department) who mobilized Tuesday, with the same slogans: against ZNTs, international free trade agreements such as CETA and "Agribashing". In particular, they blocked access to the A62 motorway (Bordeaux-Toulouse).

In Agen, about 150 farmers dumped in front of the prefecture du purin and tires, that they decided not to burn by respect for the police officers killed in Paris to whom the prefecture paid tribute with its flags at half-mast. A delegation of farmers has been received in the prefecture."We use authorized pesticides, we are not outlaws. So as long as they are allowed, we will use them, including near homes. "said the president of the Rural Coordination Bernard Lannes.

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