To call it a diplomatic incident would be an overstatement, but a sense of unease was nevertheless keenly felt in Spain after French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's comments on Sunday, January 28, during a visit to a farm in Parçay-Meslay, central France, about "unfair competition" from farmers in "neighboring countries." On Monday, the Spanish media devoted a large part of their airtime to dissecting Attal's remarks to angry French farmers: his call to reinforce France's food sovereignty and his willingness to "see what additional measures we can take on these stories of unfair competition," because "it's not normal that you are prevented from using certain [plant treatment] products, [...] but that neighboring countries, Italy or others, use them and then their [effects] come to us."
While Attal didn't mention Spain explicitly, the country's farmers nonetheless felt directly targeted, even as they are bearing the brunt of the border blockade. "We're in the European Union. Production and marketing standards are similar for everyone. There is no competitive advantage derived from the application of separate standards," said the Spanish agriculture, fisheries and food minister, Luis Planas, deploring Attal's statements as being "not normal in the context of a single market in the EU, where everyone can offer and sell their products." "If our fruit and vegetables and all our agricultural and food products are ranked in first place in Europe and in many countries around the world, it's thanks to the work of our farmers and livestock herders and the industry, and for no other reason," he said.
Planas had already expressed his discontent on Thursday, January 25, in describing the attacks by demonstrators, who emptied a dozen trucks carrying Spanish fruit and vegetables on a highway near Nîmes in southern France, as "unacceptable." In October 2023, tank trucks full of Spanish wine were blocked at the border, and their cargo was spilled on the ground. France is the main destination for Spanish exports by road – accounting for 41.5% of the total – and every day almost 10,000 Spanish trucks cross the French border.
"It's one thing for radical sectors to attack our products from time to time, but when a prime minister dares to say that we are engaging in unfair competition, the Spanish government cannot remain impassive," said Angel Villafranca, president of the Spanish Agri-Food Cooperatives union, on Antena 3 private television channel on Monday On La Sexta – another channel owned by the same media group – the French prime minister's comments, in particular the passage in favor of food sovereignty, were interpreted as "nationalistic" and "similar to that of Marine Le Pen's far-right."
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