Antoine Bienvault / Photo credit: Paul Roquecave / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 9:20 a.m., January 20, 2024

The anger of French farmers does not weaken.

For several days, many have been demonstrating or participating in blocking actions, such as in Tarn-et-Garonne, Gers, Haute-Garonne... They are demanding answers to the lack of income and competition. .

This Saturday, ministers and prefects will meet them to listen to their demands.

Are we at the dawn of a new large-scale Yellow Vest-type crisis with farmers?

This is what the Élysée fears.

For several months, actions have multiplied and anger has escalated.

Again Friday evening, blockages were in progress in Tarn-et-Garonne, Gers, Haute-Garonne... To calm the discontent, Marc Fesneau, Minister of Agriculture, is going to Cher this Saturday.

The prefects are responsible for meeting farmers and their representatives throughout this weekend.

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Farmers keep saying it, repeating it and now shouting it: they are in danger.

At the heart of their concern: the lack of income.

In 30 years, the net income of the French agricultural sector has fallen by 40%.

This farmer from Haute-Garonne, met by Europe 1, for example, is finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

"The problem today is that farmers no longer have any income. Why? Because of continual administrative overload, distortion of competition with continuous imports. And there is real fed up," explains -he.

What future for family farms?

But the farmer points to another problem.

"We have almost no generational renewal. When there is no income in a profession, we do not renew. When we see the sons of farmers who do not take over the farm, it is because "There is a real slump", he worries at the microphone of Europe 1.

Discouraged young people who would not take over the family farm, this is what these farmers mainly fear.

It must be said that the French sector is suffering from a particularly unfavorable economic context.

“French products are largely consumed by French consumers. When we are in an inflationary period for consumers, we see that it is the price effect that plays the biggest role. And if foreign products are more competitive, obviously that they will be particularly consumed on the French market", analyzes Karine Daniel, economist at the Angers Higher School of Agriculture.

Unfair European competition which undercuts prices.

This is everything these farmers are denouncing.

A situation which, according to them, could threaten France's food sovereignty in the short term.