Latest farmers protest

General Discussion
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Farmers have been causing problems again this week here in Manche,blocking ports,blocking slip roads on to motorways,burning tyres and damaging the roads etc,don,t know if it is countrywide but does anyone know what the latest gripe is about,local paper doesn,t say.Good start to the new year for people trying to get to work.

2

As I understand it, the same gripe as before Christmas, with the added Mercosur agreement issues being raised again.

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3

That one again,they are really worried that us consumers might be able to get our hands on top quality beef at a reasonable price.

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French beef?

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5

Buying beef from cows kept in feed lots? I’d rather be vegetarian.

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All imported goods should meet the standards that French producers and manufacturers have to meet to sell their products in France.

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Indeed.

But if we’re thinking about Trump, he’s spent years trying to bully the UK in particular into buying hormone-fed beef or chlorine-washed chicken that a large number of Brits don’t want. IIRC he even wanted supermarkets not to show the origin of the product, so that consumers couldn’t make an informed choice.

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Is it true that they are driving tractors from Lot-et-Garonne to Paris? It was a daunting trip by car!

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Then, if Macron won’t tell the USA where to poke their sub-standard products, the farmers and consumers of France will have to do by hampering their distribution by any legal means and never purchasing anything US made.

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It’s a bit of a schlep at autoroute speeds, so I imagine that it’s no fun at 40kph.

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and cold.

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Blocage on the A9 here at Boulou péage today into Spain

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And expensive the way tractors eat fuel!

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14

This morning I read a sympathetic account of a blockage near, but not on, the N12 in the Orne. The farmers had planned to do an operation escargot on the N12 but didn’t because of road conditions. That wouldn’t have been a problem for the tractors, or for the farmers themselves–as one of them said, they’re outdoors in weather like this all the time– but they didn’t want to make the road less safe for other traffic.

It is a pretty informative article about the economic situation farmers find themselves in, what with bovine skin disease and mercosur on the horizon.

https://actu.fr/normandie/saint-langis-les-mortagne_61414/on-tue-les-vaches-pour-pas-quelles-meurent-les-agriculteurs-se-sont-mobilises-dans-le-perche_63669966.html

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15

The potential EU trade deal isn’t with the US, it’s with the S American Mercosur bloc and the French gov has been advocating for beef in particular to be excluded from the deal.

In the SW farmers were originally protesting about the slow roll-out of vaccine following an outbreak of bovine nodular dermatitis that had probably come up from Spain and the resultant culling of infected herds. Then when the vaccine was distributed, they began complaining because the drug took a month to be effective, so vaccinated but infected herds continued to be culled

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Is there a reason for not vaccinating herds as a matter of course? Sorry if this is a daft question.

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That is what i thought,it was South American beef from Brazil and Argentina,not meat from the USA.This beef is usually all Aberdeen Angus bred and is far superior in taste and quality than the beef here in France.When we lived in the UK over 25 years ago ,we used to buy it all the time,superb.What i am struggling to understand is,at that time the UK were in the EU(remember these days when everything was better and easier),so why have we been missing out here in France for all theses years?

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Not a daft question at all!

As far as I understand this disease has only recently appeared in France, I think it’s come from the Maghreb via Spain, so previously there was no need for costly vaccination. However it’s extremely infectious and so if one animal gets it the whole herd will be culled in order to contain the spread..

Secondly, I’m not sure if meat from vaccinated herds can be exported

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19

The original outbreak in France was in the Savoie. It spread to the south west when a farmer disregarded the instructions to quarantine his herd and await the vet’s verdict. He transported the herd to the south west to avoid a potential cull - thereby spreading the disease. The subsequent ‘actions’ and protests certainly made our journey to and from Carmaux for Christmas “interesting”!

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20

Some people just need a slap with a wet fish. A large one.

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