“The agricultural unions (…) wanted an open ‘debate’. Today they are asking for its cancellation. It was duly taken into account,” the French president wrote on Platform X
THE French President Emmanuel Macron canceled today the big public debate that he expected to have tomorrow, Saturday, in the context of the Agricultural Exhibition (Salon de l’agriculture) in Paris, but suggested to the agricultural unions that he should see them before the official opening.
The idea of a major public debate, a signature of Macron, turned into a fiasco as Thursday’s reference to the invitation to the environmental collective Soulèvements de la Terre (Rebellions of the Earth), even if it was quickly cancelled, angered farmers.
“Agricultural unions (…) wanted an open ‘debate’. Today they are calling for its cancellation. It was duly taken into account,” Macron wrote on social media X.
“I will invite tomorrow (Saturday) morning all the agricultural unions before the official opening of the exhibition. I will be there for its opening and I will get in touch with everyone who wants to discuss, as I do every year,” added President Macron .
In front of his members gathered outside the gates of the Agricultural Fair this evening, the president of the powerful FNSEA trade union, Arnaud Rousseau, warned the president “that before he passes by and takes pictures, he should first tell the farmers what they expect and that which they have been claiming for weeks”.
The crowd loudly booed the president’s name foreshadowing a tense visit tomorrow. The presidents of France usually spend hours, or even the whole day, at the Agricultural Fair.
Rousseau, however, later confirmed to the television network BFMTV that he will be “there, starting tomorrow morning after the invitation of the president of the Republic”.
For her part, the president of Coordination rurale, the second largest agricultural union, Véronique Le Floc’Ache, told AFP that she also accepted this meeting with the president.
“The president made a huge mockery of us yesterday (Thursday with Soulèvements de la Terre), so what we’re waiting for now is for him to announce things,” commented Vincent Bouvren, a farmer in Seine-et-Marne who took part in a farmers’ demonstration today in Paris.
Source :Skai
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