Farmers demonstrate, the government promises

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Farmers demonstrate, the government promises




by recyclinage » 16/10/09, 10:06

PARIS - From Toulouse to the Champs-Elysees, French farmers responded on Friday to the FNSEA's call for demonstrations to ask the government to help them overcome the crisis their sector is currently facing.
Demonstration of farmers on the Champs-Elysees. From Paris to Toulouse, the agricultural world is mobilizing to claim a plan of 1,4 billion euros, including 400 million euros emergency tax exemptions. (Reuters / Philippe Wojazer)

Demonstration of farmers on the Champs-Elysees. From Paris to Toulouse, the agricultural world is mobilizing to claim a plan of 1,4 billion euros, including 400 million euros emergency tax exemptions. (Reuters / Philippe Wojazer)

They are demanding a plan of 1,4 billion euros, including 400 million euros emergency tax exemptions for farms to find cash.

Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire has pledged a comprehensive aid plan based on 2009 earnings data, which will be available next week, and will ask the European Commission to regulate markets.

According to the minister, farmers' incomes fell from 10 to 20% in 2009.

For the main farmers' union, considered too shy by its base during the milk crisis, the mobilization will also have political importance. Its president, Jean-Michel Lemétayer, expects 30.000 at 40.000 protesters.

In Paris, about forty farmers blocked traffic on the Champs-Elysees at the restaurant Le Fouquet's, where Nicolas Sarkozy had celebrated his election in May 2007.

“Sarkozy, should agriculture pay this price?” They asked on placards, while tires and wooden pallets burned under the gaze of the police.

Disturbances had begun early in the morning on the Southwest highways, with farmers conducting snail operations on A62 north of Toulouse and A75 north of Saint-Flour. In Lorraine, the A33 highway was blocked east of Nancy.

"CONCRETE"

In an interview published Friday in Le Figaro, Nicolas Sarkozy has promised strong initiatives on the agricultural file by the end of October.

"We need to bring about a new agricultural regulation which will consider farmers as entrepreneurs, who will not fear community preference (...) and which will finally guarantee farmers a fair price for their labor", said the head of the State.

"We no longer expect words but concrete", replied Jean-Michel Lemétayer on RTL. "It is his responsibility to change European agricultural policy. We have to put ourselves in fair competition with our European neighbors."

"It is necessary that by the end of the year our farms which suffer find cash to prepare for 2010", he concluded.

Bruno Le Maire said he heard "the distress of all farmers". "We must first respond to the immediate crisis. We will do so," said the Minister of Agriculture on France Info, who expects to study farmers' incomes in 2009 next week.

"On this basis, I will propose a comprehensive plan to support agriculture which will include reductions in income charges in 2009. We will look at what is reasonable and fair to do."

Bruno Le Maire said he prefers to pay farmers' loan interest rather than exempt them from the built land tax.

On the continental level, he indicated that he would plead Monday during a council of agriculture ministers in favor of market regulation. "It is more than a call, it is an urgent request", he said, addressing the European Commissioner for Agriculture Mariann Fischer Boel and the Swedish presidency of the European Union, restive to regulation.


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