“The peasants are blocking the port of Baiona to denounce the unfair competition generated by the free market! International agreements preclude farmers!” This is the message that the OECD farmers carrying out the blockade of the port of Baiona have spread on social media. The other three industrial sites in Baiona are also being mobilized by different trade union groups.

In recent days, the farmers of the state unions FDSEA and Jeunes Campesteurs (Young Farmers) have cut several motorways and roads of the French State and the problems of the peasants have come to the forefront. Also in the Northern Basque Country, protests have been moved to different points on the A-63 highway, which has generated significant funerals in recent days.

Different sectors of the rural world have different analyses of the complex situation, such as the FDSEA and the unions of young farmers denounce the increasingly demanding rules “imposed on them” from the European Union. The agricultural model based on large farms is one of the pillars of these unions and is organizing their mobilization around three main demands: “restoring the dignity of the peasants, recovering the income of leading a dignified life and mitigating abusive rules.”

The Confederation Paysanne trade union, which brings together many small French trade unions, including ELB, Euskal Laborarien Batasuna, has a very different view of the problems, but joins the protests calling for “a decent wage for every farmer and free trade” to be broken.

For the OECD, speculation, drought disease. "Farmers are not protected by crisis. But not only
the crises, but the whole system weakens the farms. It's time to break with the logics that were set on the plant 70 years ago. With these dynamics they want to represent our farms with the companies, our knowledge with the procedures and the peasants with the new technologies".

Coinciding with Confederation Paysanner, two great demands are being made from the OECD. One, a law banning the sale of crop products below production costs. And two, suspend the European Union’s Mercosur trade freedom agreement, ‘a moratorium on international agreements under negotiation and a review of existing agreements to analyse the unfair competition
generated by this free market policy’.

FDSEA and Young Farmers report that five fences will be built in the vicinity of Paris from 14:00 to move the protest to the state capital. For the time being, the French Government is very attentive to the protest and, in general, has not responded to the protests with security forces.

In the video broadcast by Irulegi Radio on social networks you can see the time when peasants enter the port:

ELB farmers block the port of Baiona! The A63 and A64 motorways are still cut by FDSEA laborists. pic.twitter.com/EuZ5kcnVaL

— Radio de Irulegi (@irulegi_irratia) January 26, 2024