Business & Economy

Mother and daughter die on fifth day of French farmers’ protests

Paris, Jan 23 (EFE).- A 35-year-old woman and her 14-year-old daughter died on Tuesday as a result of being hit by a car while taking part in a road blockade during the fifth day of a farmers’ protest in France.

President Emmanuel Macron asked his government for “solutions” as despite a meeting on Monday between Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and representatives of farmers’ unions to calm the sector’s anger, the mobilizations continued on Tuesday, with at least six roads or highways blocked.

On Tuesday morning, a car rammed into straw bales that protesters had set up across a road near the town of Pamiers, at the foot of the Pyrenees in southwestern France, hitting a couple and their daughter before coming to a stop against a tractor-trailer, prosecutor Olivier Mouysset said in a statement.

Alexandra Sonac, 35, died shortly after the crash and her 14-year-old daughter died later in the afternoon. The husband was seriously injured.

President Macron had kept a low profile in the crisis, but offered his condolences in a message on social media and called for “concrete solutions” from his government.

Farmers are complaining about what they see as excessive regulation and bureaucracy and increasing restrictions on access to irrigation water, while criticizing some aspects of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy, the phytosanitary measures of the Green Deal, and European free trade agreements.

The organizers of the mobilizations, including the powerful National Federation of Farmers’ Unions, have warned that they will continue to protest if measures are not taken in the short term.

Another important French union, the Rural Coalition, expressed skepticism on Tuesday about the French government’s willingness to find a solution.

“We will not be satisfied with mere communication tricks,” said its leader, Christian Convers.Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau appeared before the National Assembly on Tuesday and was met with jeers and boos.

Fesneau assured that he would go to Brussels to discuss certain European regulations that he said were harming French farmers, but asked that the EU not be made the “scapegoat” for all of France’s ills.

European elections will be held in June, and the far-right of Marine Le Pen (National Rally) is the clear favorite in France, well ahead of Macron’s Renaissance party and its centrist partners.

Macron’s government is not only facing the indignation of farmers. Some fishermen and truckers have also joined the protest movement, criticizing European rules that they say are unfavorable to them.

The leader of Le Pen’s party, Jordan Bardella, was in the Breton port of Lorient (northwest) on Tuesday to support the fishermen and criticize the EU.

“From fishermen to farmers, there is a coalition of anger,” noted the young politician, who claimed that Brussels “wants the death” of French agriculture. EFE

atc/ics/mcd

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