On October 3, 2026, the collectives Cancer Anger, the Western Pesticide Victims Support Collective, Earth Uprisings, and the Confédération Paysanne are calling for a massive mobilization as part of their campaign against the pesticide industry. The demonstration will target a Syngenta production site in Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne in the Eure department (27), between Rouen and Paris. Mobilization against these deadly industries with their neo-colonial practices is more urgent and crucial than ever !
On October 3, 2026, the collectives Cancer Anger, the Western Pesticide Victims Support Collective, Earth Uprisings, and the Confédération Paysanne are calling for a massive mobilization as part of their campaign against the pesticide industry. The demonstration will target a Syngenta production site in Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne in the Eure department (27), between Rouen and Paris. Mobilization against these deadly industries with their neo-colonial practices is more urgent and crucial than ever !
Recent events have been marked by renewed attacks from the political class against the regulation of chemical inputs, heeding the whispers of agribusiness representatives. In July, the emergency agricultural law was passed by the National Assembly. Supported by a right-wing/far-right alliance, this law promotes, among other things, intensive livestock farming and water-grabbing schemes (such as mega-reservoirs). But it also provides for the reintroduction of banned pesticides, notably acetimiprid, which had galvanized opposition to the Duplomb law last year.
It is in this context of repeated attacks against the moderation of hazardous products over several years that the mobilization of pesticide victims is gradually taking shape. Groups like Cancer Anger are now joining forces with the Western France Pesticide Victims Support Collective (CSVPO) to politicize the issue and highlight a serious public health problem. Indeed, according to data from Public Health France, the number of cancers doubled between 1990 and 2020. Increased life expectancy alone is insufficient to explain this, if we consider the surge in certain pediatric cancers (with inadequate treatments). For researchers, the most compelling hypothesis is linked to the environment and necessarily implicates pesticides as contributing factors to poisoning.
The number of cancer patients in France doubled between 1990 and 2023 according to Public Health France.
Credits: Laura Arias
This coordination work is now part of a broader campaign, joined by the Confédération Paysanne (Peasant Confederation) and the Soulèvements de la Terre (Earth Uprisings), which seeks to move beyond the divide between farmers as " guilty " and civil society as " victim ." Even though the subject is still sometimes taboo for farmers, they and their families are among the populations most exposed to poisoning from agricultural inputs. They are caught in a vice between, on the one hand, the health risks posed by these inputs and, on the other, the pressure to use them to remain competitive in a globalized market. The issue of pesticides thus reveals the full extent of the pressure exerted by capital on the agricultural class. The capitalist predation on peasant agriculture that preceded it has gradually imposed a rational model whose main consequences are soil depletion and crop vulnerability (particularly due to monoculture). To maintain ever-increasing productivity gains, capital has driven agricultural production to industrialize, thus necessitating mechanization and the introduction of chemical products. Agribusiness is now entirely dependent on inputs to function, and chemical input production companies are powerful players within the agricultural capitalist class. Their influence is considerable: lobbying, and their connections with key representatives of the FNSEA (National Federation of Farmers' Unions), for example. For all these reasons, the strategy of this campaign is to establish a balance of power against chemical companies. This unified strategy aims to rally the agricultural class and civil society as broadly as possible.
Why mobilize on October 3rd ?
On October 3rd, the target was a production site belonging to Syngenta, one of the world's most powerful pesticide manufacturers. Syngenta embodies the predatory capitalism that weakens small-scale farming and perpetuates a structural dependence on chemical inputs. It operates in over 90 countries, where it practices a predatory and colonial logic, ruthlessly poisoning countries in the Global South, such as Brazil. In these countries, Syngenta uses mafia-like tactics and unprecedented violence: the assassination of dissenting farmers by a private militia in Brazil, union repression, and unfair dismissals. This colonialism is characteristic of an industry that massively produces goods in Europe destined for the Global South, even though these goods are prohibited from being sold or produced on European soil. The Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne site, belonging to Syngenta, produced the necessary components for Thiamemoxam (a neonicotinoid insecticide banned in France since 2018) until 2023 and exported it to South America, exploiting a loophole in the EGALIM law (a European restriction). Since its acquisition by the ChemChina conglomerate, Syngenta has also been associated with ADAMA, an Israeli pesticide company that supplied products to the Zionist regime for its colonial war. For all these reasons, international coordination has been initiated, and actions will take place on October 3rd in about ten other countries.
The targeted site in the Eure region is no exception when it comes to its treatment of employees . Half of the 150 employees at the Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne site have taken the company to court. The issue is that the company now refuses to pay for shower time after shifts (which is mandatory for safety reasons) as working time. Syngenta, like the others, is the true enemy of our entire class. Designating them as such allows us to build a common struggle between farmers, factory workers, and sick civilians . Last November, during the action against BASF, a rapprochement with some unionized workers at the site led to support from Sud Chimie. The federation, deeply involved in this issue, should call for support for the October mobilization. For revolutionary activists, it is more than necessary to support all initiatives aimed at building a dialogue with chemical workers. This initiative can only strengthen the balance of power initiated by the fight against pesticides, because only a challenge to the power of capital over agriculture can initiate a change of model.
Ground (UCL Caen)
Demonstration on October 3rd in Saint Pierre la Garenne. Departure at 12:00 from Gaillon. Accommodation available the night before and that evening. More information at: Stop-syngenta3oct.com
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Agro-industrie-Stop-pesticides-denoncer-un-probleme-global
_________________________________________
Source - A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten