During her greetings to journalists, Marine Le Pen did not fail to recall her disagreements with the main agricultural union, the FNSEA.

What if the farmers’ opponents were among the representatives of the sector? This is the opinion of the president of the National Rally group in the National Assembly, Marine Le Pen. During her greetings to journalists on Thursday January 25, she reacted to the demonstrations and blockades of farmers in many French departments in recent days, and to the anger of the agricultural world in general. She notably took the opportunity to castigate the main agricultural union, the National Federation of Agricultural Operators’ Unions (FNSEA).

“The FNSEA is already outdated. I think it’s been a long time since farmers have been able to count on their unions,” she said. According to her, the union is at the origin of the “last straw” which triggered the current crisis and the wind of anger which reigns on the roads of France. The FNSEA’s negotiation with the government is judged as a “phony agreement” by the RN figure. For its part, the Rural Coordination still criticizes the FNSEA for the role played in the negotiations with the State concerning the taxation of non-road diesel (GNR). If the trade union organization has always publicly shown a certain hostility to the National Rally, Marine Le Pen could take the risk of definitively breaking with the FNSEA which, currently, is one of the important players in blockade operations across the country.

The RN deputy for the Somme, Jean-Philippe Tanguy also widely questioned the legitimacy of the president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, Wednesday January 24, whom he judges to be “very close to the agro-industry (…) we are still asks if he’s a farmer, permanently in a form of conflict of interest.” In Marine Le Pen’s camp, the farmer deputies prefer to calm things down for the moment. Gironde deputy Grégoire de Fournas estimated this week that “farmers are starting to get fed up with overly organized demonstrations.” Some excesses have already taken place. Indeed, on Friday January 26, in Narbonne, an empty Mutualité sociale agricole (MSA) building was notably the target of a fire on the sidelines of a farmers’ demonstration.