Emmanuel Macron's opposition to the controversial EU-Mercosur free trade deal, amidst environmental disagreement with Brazil, was widely welcomed on Friday.
"A legitimate and welcome opposition"
Ecologist Nicolas Hulot notes "an essential first step" which "must be followed by trade sanctions prohibiting imports of Brazilian agricultural products to try to stop deforestation," said Nicolas Hulot, he who had resigned from the government in August 2018 criticizing the executive not to move fast enough in terms of ecological transition.
@ Emmanuel Macron's announcement to oppose a trade agreement with #Mercosur is an essential first step. It must be followed by trade sanctions prohibiting imports of Brazilian agricultural products in an attempt to stop deforestation # ActForAmazonia 2/2
- Nicolas Hulot (@N_Hulot) August 23, 2019"Stopping the support of France is a good decision that needed to be made," reacted to AFP MP (ex-LREM) Matthieu Orphelin. "It is a legitimate opposition and welcome. congratulate me ", also told AFP LREM MEP Pascal Canfin, former boss of the WWF. "Now it would be ideal for the other European countries of the G7, Italy and Germany in particular, to join the French position.We have an opportunity tomorrow", with the start of the G7 in Biarritz, added Matthieu Orphelin.
Friday, and as wildfires spread rapidly in the Amazon, France announced its opposition to the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement, Emmanuel Macron saying that his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro had "lied" on its commitments to the environment. A decision that "does honor to France", according to the patron of the Republic Marche Stanislas Guerini.
Decision deemed "hypocritical" by LFI
"Only Macron could imagine that Bolsonaro was ecologist", mocked in a statement the deputies and deputies France insubordinate. "This is a victory of the social and ecological fight against free trade, but we can only treat it as a hypocrite if at the same time Emmanuel Macron does not return to other ecocides treaties", added the Rogue, in Treaty with Canada (CETA) and Japan (JEFTA). In the same vein, the LFI MEP Manon Aubry said that "the string is big to make us forget that he (Emmanuel Macron, ed) has made vote CETA this summer".
The signature in June of the EU-Mercosur agreement (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay), after twenty years of negotiations, had sparked a wave of criticism and questioning, particularly by the agricultural sector or environmentalists. About 50 parliamentarians The Republicans had thus indicated in a tribune their opposition, qualifying this commercial treaty of "economic error and ecological horror". "We were 75 LREM deputies to consider that this agreement in the state was not tenable.Today, clearly the President of the Republic makes the choice of climate and fair exchange," said for his part the door- LREM Aurore Bergé.