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In the midst of international controversy over fires in the Amazon rainforest, Brazilian bosses are expressing concern that Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policy will jeopardize Brazil's economy, while the French president has threatened not to ratify the deal. free trade between the European Union and Mercosur, to which the Latin American country belongs.
The largest companies in Brazil are calling Jair Bolsonaro to preserve the Amazon forest, in a statement. The Brazilian subsidiaries of Coca Cola, Nestlé, Anglo American, Siemens, Michelin, but also the Brazilian giants of Ambev beer, Petrobras oil, or Vale mines - a company that caused an environmental disaster not long ago in Brazil - say they are "concerned" about the consequences of Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policy on the country's activity.
These multinationals account for 45% of Brazil's GDP and they have every interest in a reciprocal opening of Europe and Brazil to their products. Opening threatened by the veto of Ireland and now by the warning of France .
The Brazilian agricultural lobby, he has not expressed, he supported the election of Jair Bolsonaro, but it would also be very penalized, says the economist Gabriel Gimenez-Roche, if Europe did not open more widely its Brazilian soybean, beef and ethanol market. Knowing that the United States, to which the Brazilian president seems to prefer to allies, are competitors of Brazil on all these products.
► To read also: Fires in the Amazon: Bolsonaro criticized for his disaster management
The sovereignist speech of Bolsonaro
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday called for the " mobilization of all the powers " to help Brazil and affected countries to fight forest fires in the Amazon and, beyond, invest in reforestation of affected areas. Emmanuel Macron spoke before the opening of the G7 summit in Biarritz, resume in another form his formula of " our common house " which burns, speaking of fires in the Amazon. Words that arouse the ire of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. On several occasions he said that the Brazilian Amazon was a strictly Brazilian affair, he warned against any foreign intervention. A speech with sovereignist accents, even nationalistic, but which is part of the Brazilian diplomatic tradition.
We do not touch the Amazon. Brazil has always jealously kept its hands on this vast territory five times larger than France. All presidents since the end of the military dictatorship 30 years ago have reaffirmed national sovereignty over the world's largest forest.
The Amazon has always been an important part of the country's military strategy. A legacy of the military dictatorship that then integrated this sparsely populated region into its national economic development project.
Under the leadership of the generals, roads were built, as well as dams and mines, not to mention intensive livestock farms. Persuaded that the riches of the Amazon provoke the greed of other countries, the Brazilian government has strengthened the military presence in this region difficult to access.
And it's not surprising that former army captain Jair Bolsonaro is appealing to the military to fight the fires.
Like the generals of the dictatorship, which he regularly praises, his vision of the Amazon is reduced to the exploitation of the forest by pushing agricultural plantations further and further.
► To read also: Brazil: for Bolsonaro, the rate of deforestation does not increase in Amazonia