Barthélémy Philippe / Photo credits: EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP 6:55 a.m., January 19, 2024

800,000 tonnes of cereals are transported each summer via the Seine.

However, for security reasons during the Olympic Games, the Paris prefecture decided to prohibit the transport of goods by river, one week before the events, then to limit it until September.

A decision which raises fears of an economic catastrophe.

Representatives of cereal farmers will meet at the Paris prefecture this Friday morning.

On the agenda is the transport of goods by barge on the Seine during the Olympic Games, because the river which crosses the capital serves as a route for export.

However, for security reasons, the regional prefecture has decided to prohibit navigation on the Seine for the entire week preceding the opening ceremony of the Games, on July 26.

Traffic will then be limited at times until September 8 and the end of the Paralympic Games.

And these restrictions greatly worry cereal farmers, especially since July is the start of the harvest.

A crucial period which saw hundreds of thousands of tonnes of wheat transit the Seine.

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No plan B

And the problem is that there is no plan B, explains Christophe Grison, farmer and president of the Valfrance cooperative: "There is no temporary storage solution, it doesn't exist, upstream of the river. We are being offered to replace that with trucks, but we don't have that many trucks available. One less barge on the Seine means 50 trucks to take out. And that, we won’t have them!”, he protests.

The sector will therefore plead its case to the prefect to try to obtain adjustments, at least during the week preceding the Games: “We are asking for an exemption and relaxation. Even if it means making convoys well supervised by the gendarmerie or the police. We understand the need for security. But we also have to understand that in the middle of summer, it's the harvest in France," confides the farmer.

Once considered, the total closure of the Seine during the Games would have generated potential losses amounting to 500 million euros.