2024-01-25 16:33:00
Peasant anger ignites in Occitania. Started on January 16 by a street blockade in Toulouse, the movement is spreading throughout the region and all of France…
Monday January 22, it was at the southern tollbooth of the A9 motorway in Perpignan that 150 to 200 farmers and around fifty tractors gathered. Highway blocked, rubble dumped in front of the prefecture and the Departmental Directorate of Territories and the Sea (DDTM)…
This Thursday, January 25, the mobilization extends to Béziers (Hérault) and Nîmes (Gard). In Béziers, anticipating the call from unions who are mobilizing their troops for a demonstration on Friday January 26, angry wine growers took action, targeting traders and supermarkets. Slurry was dumped in the yard of the Castel Vin merchant, with pallets set on fire. The demonstrators then attacked the Lidl and Intermarché supermarkets. In Nîmes, 1,000 demonstrators and nearly 600 tractors according to the organizers, responded to the unions’ call and came to block the A9 and A54 motorways. The demonstrators, among whom the winegrowers are legion, express generalized fed up.
“Viticulture is the most forgotten”
Pierre Hylari, winegrower in Estagel and president of the Young Farmers of the Pyrénées-Orientales, does not mince his words: “ That’s enough ! We no longer make a living from our profession and we are constantly singled out and called polluters. In Occitanie, the average income in viticulture is 600 euros per month, according to the CER France study. In 1980, my father sold 1,000 francs per hectoliter of natural sweet wine. Today, we are being offered 160 euros per hectoliter, that is to say the same price, while our costs have continued to increase. This is no longer tenable. Viticulture is disappearing and a whole section of the department’s economy, particularly tourism, is in danger. », he bursts into flames.
« The department’s viticulture is largely forgotten, continues David Drilles, president of the Roussillon winegrowers, just as upset. For four years, we have suffered a succession of climatic hazards: scalding, frost, drought, hail. Our crops are melting and no one cares. We are left to die slowly. Arborists and market gardeners have obtained aid of 6 million euros to compensate for the drought of 2023. We are asking for the same thing. »
President of the Young Farmers of Gard, Ludivine Verlaquet, denounces normative pressure: “ Everyone seems to be amazed, but we have been warning about the wine crisis that is strangling us for years. Our treasuries are dry. The prices of our wines are collapsing and our profitability with it. We are stuck with environmental standards that cost us dearly without benefiting from the slightest improvement in return. And we barely have time to integrate these constraints before new standards are enacted. Enough is enough. We ask for a normative pause. We are experiencing an unprecedented crisis that is taking hold over time. It’s a disaster in viticulture in our department! ».
“Since 2020, I have no longer paid myself a salary”
Established in 2010 on the 27-hectare family estate in Sabran, in the Gard, Pierre Vidal, 33, clearly illustrates the dismay of these young winegrowers shaken by this crisis.
« Following the frost in 2020 and 2021 and the drought in 2022, I lost 30% of my harvest each year, he says. In 2023, yields were correct but the Côtes-du-Rhône union reduced the authorized yield by 10% to rebalance supply and demand. Despite this, wine prices fell by 25 euros/hl. In Côtes-du-Rhône, our cost price, calculated by CER France, is 147 euros/hl while we are offered 120 euros/hl. Since 2020, I have no longer paid myself a salary… Reason would dictate that I sell the estate but I am holding on because I am the 4th generation in charge of this vineyard. I can’t imagine putting an end to this family story. »
The young winegrower turns his back, negotiates with his bank the credit freeze for this year, but feels that his situation is not sustainable: “ We young people have loans to repay. We will be the first to disappear while our elders, who are approaching retirement, have shed most of their credits and are therefore better equipped to overcome this crisis. ».
The ball is in the government’s court, whose responses are eagerly awaited. “ We will not be satisfied with promises, this time, we need actions », sums up the young Gard winemaker.
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