The farmers’ movement continues to move closer to Paris with the blocking of eight highways around the capital this Monday, January 29 and for an indefinite period. Are they planning to enter Paris?
The “siege” of Paris has begun. Many farmers responded to the call launched by the FNSEA and the Young Farmers of the Greater Paris Basin this Monday, January 29 to block the eight highways which serve the capital from north to south and from west to east: the A1 near from the commune of Epiais-lès-Louvres; the A4 near Jossigny; the A5 at Plessis-Picard and Ourdy; the A6 near Villabé; the A10 near Longvilliers, shortly after the Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines toll; the A13 at the Buchelay toll; the A15 between Argenteuil and Gennevilliers and the A16 at L’Isle-Adam.
In place since the beginning of the afternoon this Monday, the blockages on the outskirts of Paris must be maintained for an “indefinite period”, the unions indicated during the weekend. The objective is to hold out until the government announces measures satisfactory in the eyes of farmers disappointed by the “measures” presented by Gabriel Attal on Friday January 26. Anxious to calm anger and emerge from the crisis, the government promised new measures “within 48 hours” through the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, guest of France 2, this Monday.
The eight blockades organized from January 29 all took place “30 kilometers” from Paris, warned the president of the FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau on RTL. His counterpart from the Young Farmers of Ile-de-France, Clément Torpier, also assured franceinfo that the demonstrators have “no intention of returning to Paris”. Both hope that this rapprochement of the capital will be enough to put pressure on the government to obtain new measures. But if that doesn’t prove to be enough, will they dare to move further into Paris? None of the unionists mentioned or ruled out this scenario.
The fact remains that going inside large cities, particularly Paris, is now a red line set by the Minister of the Interior. Gérald Darmanin, who announced the deployment of 15,000 members of the police, as well as armored vehicles and helicopters to monitor the progress of the convoys, assured that the police would not intervene unless a line red is crossed. More than returning to Paris, the solution to further harden the movement would consist of blocking other roads such as the major national ones according to the unions.
Some trade unionists still hold partisan speeches for the blocking of Paris, such as Cyrille Milard, the president of the FDSEA Seine-et-Marne who coordinates the blockages of the A4, A5 and A6 and assured Le Parisien that he wanted to carry out “a total blockade” of the capital to the Parisian.
The FNSEA and the Young Farmers only aim to block the major highways leading to Paris, but the rural Coordination union sees further and plans to block the Rungis market, the nerve center of Ile-de-France. Monday morning, a convoy of tractors left Agen with the aim of reaching Rungis on the evening of January 30 or the morning of January 31. But blocking the Parisian market of national interest is another red line set by Gérald Darmanin and if no traffic problems were observed near Rungis this Monday, armored law enforcement vehicles monitor the entrance.
The president of Rural Coordination, Véronique Le Floc’h, has been hammering home the idea of ??blocking Rungis for several days. At the start of the farmers’ crisis she also said that “the Agricultural Show could also be blocked.” “There is a deadline and I think that all our politicians must be aware of it. If no response is provided quickly, they know very well that the Agricultural Show could be hot,” she declared on January 24 on BFMTV. Currently, no majority agricultural union has called for a boycott of the event.
