Martin Lange / Photo credits: Henrique Campos / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 8:45 a.m., February 2, 2024
After having traveled almost half of France by tractor and trying to reach Rungis, the convoy of farmers leaving Agen is hitting the road again this Friday, this time, to return home. If the objective of blocking the largest market in France has fallen through, everyone returns with the memory of a France behind them.
Under a chorus of horns, the farmers of Lot-et-Garonne leave the Gien bridge which they had tried to cross on Thursday afternoon, a final desperate attempt to reach Rungis. This Friday, they will hit the road again, heading towards Agen.
"We don't return to Agen out of joy, we are expelled from here. We could go around France, the gendarmes don't want us to cross the Loire", annoys Jean-Pierre, a cereal farmer. "It's 1,500 kilometers long and we won't be able to cross. So, we're going home. Afterwards, we couldn't go to Rungis, but some of us managed to get back there. So, for me, it’s a victory,” explains the farmer.
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A united people
A victory certainly, but with a taste of unfinished business for all those who remained stuck in the Loiret. But some, like Didier, return home, motivated as never before, pushed by popular support. "We will not forget the people we met on the way. People who, even at night or early in the morning, in their nightgowns, came to applaud us. I realized through this trip that we were really, really supported,” he insists at the microphone of Europe 1.
“I think we will continue to fight in a different way, but we will go to the end,” continues Didier. In the meantime, solidarity is being established between farmers. Proof of this is that the operators of the convoy returning to Agen slept during the night from Thursday to Friday in a colleague's farm about fifty kilometers from Orléans. They should hit the road Friday morning.