Farmers demonstrated this Thursday in Lyon to express their dissatisfaction with the EGalim law.

This law, promulgated two years ago, was to ensure them a "fair" selling price in supermarkets so that they can live from their production.

Problem: many of them are in great difficulty.

At the same time, a report to better remunerate farmers was submitted to the government.

A report to better remunerate farmers was submitted to the government on Thursday, with nine proposals devised by Serge Papin, the former boss of Système U. Among them: the end of trade negotiations with mass distribution.

Instead, Serge Papin offers multi-year contracts with a fixed price for raw materials.

Fairer remuneration, therefore, which was already guaranteed by the EGalim law, a law promulgated in October 2018 with the objective of balancing trade relations in the agricultural and food sector.

The text is considered ineffective by the farmers, who demonstrated this Thursday in Lyon. 

Make a living as a farmer

200 tractors gathered in the middle of the day at Place Bellecour, an impressive spectacle in the city center.

This is proof that the mobilization of the rural world is strong in this region: the event brought together both farmers from the Rhône, but also from neighboring departments of Ain, Loire, Isère or Savoy.

All claim to be able to make a living from their profession.

Last month, farmers in Haute-Garonne demonstrated for the same reasons. 

For this, they must be paid at the right price, one that takes production costs into account, explains Amaël, a 23-year-old who has just settled in the mountains of Lyonnais: "Fed up! It's been two years since the EGalim law. We are promised prices and there is nothing that follows. When I see a liter of milk that we are bought at 36 cents and that we find at more of a euro in supermarkets, the margin is enormous! "

The Papin report goes in the direction of farmers

Better regulating relations with large-scale distribution is what farmers are asking for.

They believe that the Papin report is going in the right direction, as Pascal Girin of the FDSEA explains: "It is roughly on the same wavelength as what we are being offered, that is to say. say that the price negotiations are done well in the yard of the farm between the farmer and his first buyer, and that then, this cost of production is not at any time questioned by the various intermediaries that there are between the producer and the consumer ".

This report therefore seems to be a good working basis for the farmers, who spent part of the afternoon on Place Bellecour to get their message across.