The countryside prepares its assault on Madrid with slurry in La Castellana, the ministries and Ferraz: "There is going to be a big mess"

DAVID VIGARIO

Updated Friday, February 9, 2024-00:01

The third day of mobilizations of the agricultural sector in Spain - already with traditional agricultural organizations in the streets in four provinces - yesterday marked a turning point that multiplied the tension on the roads as had not happened until now when the first outbreaks of violence broke out. : police charges; Civil Guard agent injured with a bloody eye after being hit by a stone in Zafra (Badajoz); two police officers in Antequera (Málaga); farmers beaten and detained; 'escrache' the president of Navarra, María Chivite (PSOE), at the doors of her house two days after she distanced herself from the farmers' demands...

"There is no one to control this anymore,

it is a totum revolutum impossible to manage

and, what is worse, to foresee its end," says an agricultural expert with dozens of demonstrations behind him. "We don't want to hurt anyone, what we want is to fight for our bread," one of the farmers snapped at the Civil Guard after the Zafra incidents occurred.

The Minister of the Interior,

Fernando Grande-Marlaska,

pointed out yesterday that "management is not simple" and assured that the work focuses on "guaranteeing the right to demonstrate as well as ensuring that the rest of society can develop their lives with sufficient guarantees." and

that public services are duly guaranteed

. Since the beginning of the mobilizations, the Security Forces and Corps have detained, according to data provided by the Ministry of the Interior, 19 people in different parts of the country and have identified another 2,725 for proposed administrative sanctions. In addition, 799 administrative complaints and 4,200 traffic complaints have been filed, mainly for attempting to invade, without permission, highways to block the passage of cars.

Meanwhile, the mobilizations are beginning to have an economic cost. The Spanish Confederation of Freight Transport (CETM) has calculated that the agricultural mobilizations are costing, with more than

75,000 trucks affected, an average of 35 million euros per day

when last week's incidents in France damaged Spanish transport by about 120 millions of euros.

In this context, the Government - paralyzed in the first days of the revolt - began to move yesterday. The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration,

Elma Saiz

, urgently called agricultural organizations for next Tuesday to address the "labor problem" in the countryside after estimating

the number of jobs that have been lost in this sector at 100,000. in 10 years.

However, the farmers asked Saiz to change the date since that day one of the great annual agricultural machinery fairs opens in Zaragoza. A meeting of the Food Chain Law Observatory, an attached body of the Ministry of Agriculture, has been scheduled for the next day, Wednesday.

The next step of the

6F Primary Sector

platform is a call to its territorial delegates so that this Friday, from 10 in the morning, they gather at the doors of the Government delegations throughout Spain in protest, as this group argues, for the "repression" of the National Police. Its leader,

Lola Guzmán

, released another video that moved quickly on WhatsApp among her loyal followers. Surrounded by farmers and Spanish flags, she warned: "We are having problems with the National Police, I thanked the Civil Guard 'a thousand thanks' (sic) on behalf of all my colleagues on platform 6F." And she added: «We are going to call on our delegates to confront the national (Government) Delegate; We have the right to demonstrate, we still have democracy, and you are not going to send us home" to then ask for the support of all the "consumer" associations because, he assures, "we need you", but with a nuance: "We can only take the flag of Spain with a black crepe, other flags are not allowed. The exact location of these state public buildings in each region was also moved on networks. On her TikTok channel, she added that "they won't be able to with us" while she blamed Minister Marlaska: "I warned you last Saturday, that you were going to have a very bad time."

The entire management of this platform is now focused on surrounding the capital of Spain. According to Guzmán herself,

"a big deal is going to happen in Madrid

." "We are coordinating," while at the same time she assures that "our purpose is to cut off the ports of Portugal, Spain and Italy."

The idea is to call on civil society, with the already confirmed support of the National Platform for the Defense of the Transport Sector, to form "caravans of vehicles that cut off traffic and access to Madrid from midnight on Saturday." In addition, trucks of slurry (waste of organic origin and fermented excrement) are prepared with the intention of throwing it on the buildings of different ministries and making a final stop of the tractor unit on Ferraz Street, the headquarters of the PSOE.

At the same time, on Saturday there is another conclave where they have their sights set: the Goya Awards gala, with the intention of obtaining greater media coverage. This edition is held in Valladolid and the red carpet walk is scheduled from 7:30 p.m. at the Fair facilities in the capital of Pucelana.