Two days before the opening of the Agricultural Show, and while farmers’ movements are resuming in places, Greenpeace activists carried out several actions, early in the morning on Thursday February 22, against “the agro-industrial system”.
In Bruz (Ille-et-Vilaine), three activists from the environmental protection organization arriving in a van demolished the logo of the agri-food group Avril, located on the side of the road. After deploying two ladders, they unscrewed the logo plates to replace it with a banner reading “Avril se gorge = exploited farmers”.
With 9 billion euros in turnover in 2022, Avril is a powerful agro-industrial firm present in oils, agrofuels, animal nutrition and even chemistry. Its board of directors is headed by Arnaud Rousseau, president of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions (FNSEA), the leading trade union organization in the profession.
Actions against Lactalis and Bayer
“We are facing the Avril group, which is one of the proponents of this agro-industrial system which impoverishes farmers,” Ariane Malleret, in charge of the Greenpeace France agricultural campaign, told the press. “Today, we are asking the government to set a clear course on the ecological transition. For that, we must tackle head-on the issue of inequalities and income which is expressed by this anger in the agricultural world,” she added.
In Sablé-sur-Sarthe, activists dismantled the logo on the roof of the LDC group, which markets the Le Gaulois and Maître Coq brands, before loading it into a truck and putting up a banner in its place saying “LDC gorges itself, guilty agribusiness”. At the same time, other actions were carried out, Thursday morning, in Toury (Eure-et-Loir) against Bayer, in Lisieux (Calvados) against Lactalis or even in Paris at the FNSEA headquarters.
