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The FNSEA and young farmers announced the lifting of the blockages last evening, after the government's announcements. “How the crisis is unblocking”, headlines Le Parisien. Gabriel Attal put 400 million euros on the table to convince the unions. The government also announced the strengthening of the Egalim laws and dropped ballast on phytosanitary products, to the great chagrin of environmentalists. “Ecology cannot always be sacrificed,” growls a walker. An annoyance echoed by Libération. If the mission is accomplished for Attal, the ecology has been put fallow. “Giving in to their pressure and putting the Ecophyto 2030 plan on hold is crossing an unacceptable red line,” judges a member of the National Biodiversity Committee.
However, the crisis is not completely over, the unions want results before the start of the Paris Agricultural Show on February 24. Some farmers do not agree with the unions, as reported in Le Figaro, and in particular young people "we want to go further", they say. “We have the impression that between our union superiors and the base, we do not have the same analysis” we can read. If the crisis in the agricultural world is coming to an end in France, it continues in Europe and in particular in Brussels, where blockages are once again planned.
Brussels, where European leaders made Viktor Orban bend yesterday on Ukraine. “Viktor Orban did not receive a gift”, headlines this morning the Belgian daily Le Soir. The summit promised to be difficult, yet in a few minutes, the 27 agreed on aid to Ukraine. Above all, it’s a lot of work up front, emphasize the managers. Georgia Meloni would thus have been on the front line to convince the Hungarian Prime Minister. Since Tuesday, the President of the Italian Council has had three meetings with Viktor Orban on the subject, including one on the night before the summit, explains Le Figaro. Giorgia Meloni is, in fact, very close to Viktor Orban.
We remain in Europe, with this information which has caused a lot of ink to flow. At least a quarter of MEPs are involved in affairs or scandals. A few months before the European elections, the information is worrying. Following the Qatar Gate affair in December 2022, which shook Parliament, a consortium of 24 European media outlets, including Le Monde, investigated. The newspaper reveals that a quarter of the 704 MEPs have been involved in a case of breaking the law. Offenses which have varying degrees of seriousness, ranging from simple theft of a mobile phone, to complicity in murder, including embezzlement. According to the census carried out, MEPs from the far right, the populist radical right and the “illiberal” right are over-represented. Among them, Jordan Bardella and even Marine Le Pen, implicated in the vast affair of parliamentary assistants. Other cases revealed appear aberrant. Thus, the former president of the Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, Ioannis Lagos, still sits as an independent and votes on texts from his prison in Greece where he is serving a thirteen-year sentence...
Other headline news is Catalonia, where 80% of the population will be subject to water restrictions in the middle of winter. This is the worst drought on record in the El Pais region this morning. A state of emergency has been declared and this will have significant consequences on industries and residents. Six million people will have to limit their consumption.
Another sector affected: farmers who are sounding the alarm in the Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia. The cows must be able to continue to drink, especially since Spanish breeders do not use water from the urban network, but that from their own wells and have already had savings plans for many years. The problem is that with the increase in droughts, the wells risk drying up in turn. We want a compromise to preserve productive potential, demands the farmers' union.
We end with the latest physical exercise trend in the United States. It may seem silly, but it's very serious: it's about imitating the gestures of animals to use muscles that we're not used to using, and it's also good for the joints. The New York Times suggests imitating the crab, the monkey or the lizard.
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