Laura Laplaud (comments collected by Mayalène Trémolet) / Photo credits: VALENTINE CHAPUIS / AFP 10:51 a.m., January 23, 2024

Farmers have been demonstrating for several days to denounce the constraints that threaten their profession and are demanding “concrete measures”.

A crisis which comes five months before the European elections and which therefore embarrasses the government.

Farmers are continuing, this Tuesday, January 23, their actions to obtain “concrete measures”, after discussions still at an impasse with the government of Gabriel Attal.

If the Prime Minister received the FNSEA (National Federation of Agricultural Operators' Unions) and the Young Farmers' Union Monday evening in Matignon to try to calm the discontent, this meeting did not convince those concerned who will continue their actions as long as “concrete decisions” will not be taken by the executive, declared FNSEA president Arnaud Rousseau.

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A crisis “beneficial to the National Rally”

According to Jean-Daniel Lévy, director of the Harris Interactive politics and opinion department, this anger presents a risk for the government and could trigger electoral fever, five months before the European elections.

“This will be beneficial in particular for the National Rally,” he says.

"The French often have the impression that, at the European level, from a food point of view, actions are rather negative than positive. With the general idea that we are faced with farmers who do not earn much money and who don't count their hours and who hardly take vacations and who have a real mission, [that] of nourishing French society", continues Jean-Daniel Lévy.

Farmer protests in several European countries

Among their demands: administrative simplifications, no new ban on pesticides, a stop to the increase in the price of RNG, faster compensation after calamities, or even the full application of the law supposed to oblige industrialists and large areas to pay farmers better.

French farmers are not the only ones to make their voices heard in recent days.

The Netherlands, Romania, Poland and Germany are also experiencing demonstrations by farmers who denounce tax increases as well as the European "Green Deal", a series of proposals aimed at making Europe climate neutral in 2050. European ministers from the agricultural sector are due to meet this Tuesday in Brussels.