French farmers threaten to block rail freight services

A branch of the French militant farmers’ union, the Coordination Rurale (CR), have threatened to block rail freight services carrying food shipments in south-west France later this month as they push for the State to provide financial support for the sector. They have called on members to protest outside State prefectures in the region on 19 November and will begin action the following day if the government has not agreed to their demands.

In a statement, the CR branch warned that “without a strong and immediate decision” from the government (to our demands), from Wednesday 20 November, farmers will blockade French food freight flows.” The aim of the action is “to give the government a foretaste of what our country will be like without farmers in the future,” the statement added. The co-president of the CR in the Lot et Garonne département, José Perez, claimed that 30 per cent of farms in the département were under threat of closure next year because of financial difficulties.

He told local media: “Everything is already in place (for action). We’ve spoken to all the presidents in the other (neighbouring) départements. If the government does not respond, there will be no more food transport in the whole of the south-west of France, stretching from Perpignan to Limoges.” However, he did not specify how and where food supply chains would be blocked. Cereal crops are a major rail freight commodity at this time of year in south-west France. There are also fears that the farmers’ protests could spread to other regions of France.

Not the first initiative

At the start of this year, the Coordination Rural teamed up with other farmers’ unions and staged angry, sometimes violent action, claiming that many of their members were unable to earn a living wage as a result of being weighed down by too much bureaucracy and regulation, particularly with regard to the European Union’s environmental protection measures.

This saw major highways blocked across the country culminating in a large-scale tractor convoy converging on Paris with the aim of laying siege to the world’s largest wholesale market of fresh produce, Rungis, and disrupting food distribution in France’s premier economic region.

However, this never came about as the unions accepted a government offer to provide a package of financial relief. But today, the unions claim that their members are now worse off than ever. The threat of disruption to rail freight in France follows a call by labour unions at SNCF for workers to stage a one-day strike at the State-owned railway on 21 November in protest to the liquidation of rail freight subsidiary, Fret SNCF, at the end of the year.