Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credit: Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP 6:27 p.m., January 30, 2024

“Talk, he only repeated what he had said to Carbonne.” Gabriel Attal's general policy speech did not convince farmers. The president of the Lot-et-Garonne Rural Coordination believes that “agriculture had no place at all in his speech. We are completely disappointed, but re-motivated”. 

Gabriel Attal's general policy declaration is just "blah" and "absolutely does not meet our expectations", said Tuesday the president of the Lot-et-Garonne Rural Coordination, an agricultural union which organized a convoy of tractors towards the Rungis market.

“That’s not how we’re going to get out of the crisis”

"I didn't remember anything from it, it's complete nothingness, blabla, especially in terms of agriculture: he only repeated what he had said in Carbonne", near Toulouse, Friday, declared Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, reached by telephone by AFP. “That’s not how we’re going to get out of the crisis,” said the president of the Lot-et-Garonne Chamber of Agriculture, for whom the Prime Minister “absolutely does not meet our expectations.”

“Agriculture had no place at all in his speech. We are completely disappointed, but remotivated by the fact that we were fooled by this government of smokers,” he added. Serge Bousquet-Cassagne indicated Tuesday afternoon that he was joining the convoy of tractors, which left the southwest the day before and which was between Chateauroux (Indre) and Vierzon (Cher). “Around 200 light vehicles from Lot-et-Garonne are arriving with me to reinforce the troops and replace the drivers,” he said.

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According to him, the convoy was to spend the night between Vierzon and Orléans to “discuss what we are doing tomorrow, Wednesday”. The farmers, who on Tuesday repeatedly bypassed police roadblocks, notably on the A20 motorway, will "try by all means to get back to Paris, and of course to Rungis", the wholesale market which is the food lung of the entire Ile-de-France, assures Serge Bousquet-Cassagne.

Gabriel Attal assured Tuesday that there must "be a French agricultural exception" and promised that the government would be "there, without any ambiguity" to respond to the current agricultural crisis, in his general policy declaration before the National Assembly.