what we know about the arrest of a farmer targeted by the police in Auch

Police officers pointed their weapons at a farmer driving his tractor on Saturday evening during a demonstration in the Gers. “A red line has been crossed,” condemns the Rural Coordination.

The scene, filmed, caused a stir in the agricultural world. CRS carried out “summons with weapon drawn”Saturday December 27 in the evening, during a demonstration in Auch (Gers), after a farmer sprayed the facade of a daily agency with manure La Dépêche du Midiaccording to the prefecture of Gers. The Rural Coordination, a union marked on the right, announced that it would contact the General Inspectorate of the National Police and the public prosecutor. Here is what we know about this affair.

A demonstration against the herd slaughter protocol

Farmers gathered in Auch, two days after Christmas, to protest against the compulsory slaughter protocol imposed by the government on herds affected by lumpy skin disease. Hay was dumped in front of the prefecture and manure was sprinkled on the premises of La Dépêche du Midi, as shown in the images below, filmed the next day by the newspaper.

To carry out this spreading operation, a tractor was positioned across the road. CRS intervened to ask the driver to “cease its action and to immobilize your machine”reports the prefecture. “Despite these injunctions”the farmer began a maneuver and advanced towards the police, forcing them to make “summons with weapon drawn”according to the account of state services.

Various videos of the scene were posted on social networks. On one of them, filmed from the tractor and relayed on Facebook by Jérôme Courrèges, president of the Gers Rural Coordination, we hear several times police officers calmly asking the farmer to stop his vehicle. “I don’t see anything there”replies the driver, while backing up slightly. According to Rural Coordination, which denounces a scene “lunar”the farmer “was just repositioning his wheels on the road”.

The farmer finally stopped the engine of his tractor, before being arrested and taken into police custody around 11 p.m. “Calm returned very quickly to the site and the demonstrators present quickly began cleaning up their misdeeds”concludes the prefecture. The arrested farmer was released around 4 a.m., according to Rural Coordination.

A “disproportionate” targeting, according to Rural Coordination

“The irreparable almost happened”the Rural Coordination protested, Sunday morning, on X. “He was just a farmer driving his tractor, which posed no danger. Seeing lethal weapons pointed at him for several seconds is shocking”denounced the president of the Gers chamber of agriculture, Lionel Candelon, on HERE Occitanie. For this figure of Rural Coordination, such an intervention was “disproportionate” And “a red line has been crossed”.

“I fear that one day, because of these types of images, the respect that farmers have always had for the police will disappear.”

Lionel Candelon, president of the Gers Chamber of Agriculture

at ICI Occitanie

“We will contact the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), as well as the public prosecutor, so that this unacceptable act is firmly condemned by the courts”said the union on Sunday, demanding “an official apology” of the government. Monday morning, however, no report had yet reached the IGPN, franceinfo learned from a police source.

For its part, the Gers Peasant Confederation, marked on the left, says it is “shocked” by these images. “This shows that we are in a State which only knows how to repress, which no longer knows how to dialogue”its national secretary Sylvie Colas tells franceinfo. “But let’s not fall into the trap. Our real subject is contagious lumpy skin disease. The challenge is to save our farms”she adds, deploring “a political recovery” of this incident by right-wing and far-right personalities.

The authorities defend the “compliant” action of the police

“The police intervened (…) in compliance with the legal framework, the tractor driver not having complied with the injunctions, moving towards them, putting them directly in danger”defended the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, on Sunday, X. “No violent expression can be accepted” within the framework of agricultural demonstrations, he insisted, while stressing that “numerous spontaneous demonstrations were able to take place without being hindered”.

The Auch prosecutor, Clémence Meyer, said that“no investigation” had not been open to his initiative against the CRS present during the incident. “The conditions in which the police officers took out their weapons comply with the legal framework”she told franceinfo on Monday. A reading of the facts shared by Laurent Bohé, lawyer specializing in the defense of law enforcement, on BFMTV. “We see that we have a person who does not comply with the orders of the police. (…) The means that was found by this police commissioner and some of his colleagues was the right solution”he explained, recalling the potential danger of a tractor.

The prefect of Gers, Alain Castanier, said he understood “emotion” aroused by the scene, while qualifying its seriousness. “In this case, it lasted three seconds. As soon as (the farmer) turned off the engine, the weapons were put away. There was no violence.” Faced with “very difficult situations” many farmers in the department, the prefect assures “understand the manifestations”more “no damage”.