At midday, Thursday January 25, the sausages were grilling on the brazier and the farmers had started the aperitif when Benoît Masure’s phone vibrated. The head of the FNSEA for the canton of Etampes (Essonne) considers the text which has just arrived, and stops. “I have to tell the guys right away”he blurted out as he went to get the microphone: “The blockade of Paris is decided for tomorrow”announces Mr. Masure to the audience.
While Prime Minister Gabriel Attal must present measures on Friday, in Haute-Garonne, the Ile-de-France sections of the majority FNSEA and Jeunes Agriculteurs unions promise to block Ile-de-France highways the same day from 2 p.m. The objective is clear to everyone: to increase pressure on the government and get their demands met. “ We will count on all of you, on your mobilization”, says Mr. Masure. Applause breaks out. Of the ” Yeah ! » rise. UN ” it’s the war ! » is even shouted.
Since the emergence of the farmers’ movement on January 18 in Occitania, anger has spread throughout the country, right up to the gates of the capital. Like the Essonians, farmers from Oise, Yvelines or Seine-et-Marne position their tractors on the main roads leading there. Inexorably, they come closer. Even if, the president of the Young Farmers of Ile-de-France, Clément Torpier, told BFM-TV, “we have no intention of returning to Paris”.
Thursday morning, around a hundred farmers from Essonne gathered at a roundabout on national road 20, at the entrance to Etampes. All around, gendarmes took up positions. They are monitoring the place. Around twenty tractors were parked in a circle, all around the central reservation. A few bales of straw are burning in the middle. It looks like a cowboy entrenchment in the Wild West.
But it is the reference to the mode of action of the “yellow vest” social protest movement, during the winter of 2018-2019, that is obvious. “It has nothing to do with themprotests Mr. Masure. It is a visible place, on a major road. We usually come here. » Elsewhere in France, the “yellow vest” spirit is turning to peasant green. Thursday morning, on the A50 motorway in Var, several participants from the 2018 protest hoped to resume the movement. Some are not farmers, but they are part of the procession nonetheless. “We never gave up” said Julien.
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