2.

The Commission has described the facts and circumstances underlying this action and the pre-litigation procedure concisely and fully in its application. The Government of the French Republic has referred to that account in its defence. In view of the importance of this case, it seems to me appropriate to cite that account in full here: ( 1 ) ‘(1) For more than a decade, the Commission has regularly received complaints about violent acts committed by protest movements of French farmers against agricultural products from other Member States (damage to, and destruction of, shipments and means of transport, threats against lorry drivers and distributors of fruit and vegetables). The details given by numerous complainants have often shown that the French authorities did not respond in a manner proportionate to the gravity of the situation. Thus, the complainants have regularly objected that the authorities responsible for maintaining law and order remained passive. That situation prompted the Commission to approach the French authorities on numerous occasions, one of them involving the issue of an initial letter of formal notice on 8 May 1985, and to call on them to adopt the necessary preventive and penal measures to put a stop to the aforementioned acts of violence. The French authorities always replied to the Commission with the assurance that they would react firmly in order to ensure free trade. However, despite those repeated assurances, acts of destruction and damage regularly recurred. (2) In 1993 the Commission was forced to conclude that this recurrent problem had taken on a new dimension since it emerged that, on the initiative of certain groups such as “Coordination Rurale”, the violent actions had ceased to be isolated, spontaneous acts and were now part of an elaborate plan to control the supply of goods imported from other Member States. Between April and July 1993, shipments of Spanish fruit and vegetables, in particular strawberries, which were either intended for the French market or in transit on the territory of the French Republic, were subjected to a campaign of harassment organized by “Coordination Rurale”. Then, in August and September, “Coordination Rurale” targeted shipments of tomatoes from Belgium; also in August, a lorry carrying pigs from Denmark was attacked and its load destroyed by demonstrators at the Gravelle toll booths. (3) By letter of 8 July 1993 to the Permanent Representative of France to the European Communities, the Commission pointed out that the organized and planned nature of the actions by “Coordination Rurale” was undoubtedly part of a plan to block trade, the reason for which lay primarily in the fact that the Spanish producers had refused to share the market on the basis of the principle of complementarity of supplies (Annex I). In fact, in addition to acts of violence against lorries carrying mainly Spanish strawberries or Belgian tomatoes, and against warehouses or supermarkets distributing those products, “Coordination Rurale” claimed to have resorted to the following: — threats and intimidation against businesses, transport operators and the wholesale trade; — “robust” demands aimed at forcing supermarkets to purchase national or, more accurately, regional products; — imposition of a minimum selling price in supermarkets; — carrying out of systematic checks to monitor compliance by businesses with the requirements imposed. (4) In 1994 a fresh campaign of violence was launched in France with a view to obstructing the free movement on French territory of strawberries arriving from Spain. On 19 April some 150 strawberry producers from Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne and Gironde checked lorries at the St-Jean-de-Védas toll booths for two-and-a-half hours and unloaded some 450 tonnes of Spanish and Moroccan strawberries on to the road. On the same day, more than 300 farmers occupied a large distribution centre in Narbonne and destroyed about 360 tonnes of imported strawberries. Consequently, as early as 21 April 1994, the Commission called on the French authorities to take stringent measures, proportionate to the gravity of the situation and the potential risk of the spread of such campaigns, to maintain law and order in order to demonstrate their clear determination to prevent the organizers of those actions from resorting to such aggressive methods (Annex II). In addition, the Commission asked to be informed about the criminal prosecutions which the French authorities were undertaking against those responsible for the acts of violence committed during the period from April to August 1993. (5) However, two weeks later, on the evening of 3 May 1994, at the same pUce, the St-Jean-de-Védas motorway toll booth, some 150 French producers again blockaded lorries carrying strawberries from Spain and destroyed the goods, but the forces of law and order which were present took no action to provide effective protection for the lorries and their loads. In addition, the Commission again received new information about certain illegal activities being carried out by organizations such as “Coordination Rurale”, which were continuing their campaigns of threats and blackmail, targeting wholesale and retail commercial centres which had offered for sale products from other Member States (for example, Spanish strawberries and Belgian tomatoes). Documentary evidence adduced by complainants shows that, in fact, “Coordination Rurale” and other organizations were continuing to send letters to the managers of supermarkets, letters which appeared to infringe Article 322-13, if not Article 322-12, of the French Criminal Code. Thus the following warning was sent (Annex III): “To ensure that a climate of insecurity does not prevail in the fruit and vegetable departments of your stores or warehouses from the beginning of March 1994, it would be desirable for you to give preference to French products. We trust that you will quickly understand what is required in order to avoid violent reprisals. The trouble-free operation of your stores, which we shall be visiting regularly, will depend on your cooperation.” Another letter from the Fédération Départementale des Producteurs de Légumes du Maine-et-Loire, dated 18 April 1994 and addressed to the “Grossistes du MIN”, read as follows: “As we indicated at our meeting on 12 April, we confirm the dates on which imports of strawberries and asparagus will be blockaded, namely: — strawberries from Morocco: immediate blockade, ... — strawberries and asparagus from Spain: blockade on 1 May at the latest, since at that time French production will be sufficient to cover French consumption. The major difficulties which vegetable producers are experiencing force us to be extremely vigilant, and the discovery of goods during the checks carried out on the abovementioned dates will result in the destruction of those goods.” (Annex IV). (6) That situation prompted the Commission, on 19 July 1994, to send a letter of formal notice to the French authorities, in which it expressed the opinion that, by failing to take all necessary and proportionate measures to prevent individuals from obstructing, by means of criminal acts, the free movement of agricultural products, the French Republic had failed to fulfil its obligations under the common organizations of the markets in agricultural products and under Article 30 of the EC Treaty in conjunction with Article 5 of that Treaty (Annex V). (7) The French authorities replied by letter of 10 October 1994 (Annex VI) in which they pointed out that they had consistently and firmly condemned the irresponsible acts of vandalism committed by the French farmers. They stressed that the preventive measures introduced had proved sufficiently dissuasive to bring about a notable reduction in the number of violent incidents between 1993 and 1994 and that, as regards the prosecution of offenders, the locally competent public prosecutors had systematically initiated investigations. If these had been unsuccessful, that was due to the particular methods used by the demonstrators. Because of the illegal attempts by “Coordination Rurale” to control the market by the use of threats, proceedings had been brought against it before the Conseil de la Concurrence (Competition Council). (8) On 26 January 1995, in reply to a letter from the Commission of 1 December 1994 (Annex VII) following a bilateral meeting on 27 October 1994, the French authorities sent a memorandum to the Commission explaining in more detail the precautions taken and the penal measures initiated (Annex VIII). (9) As a precaution, Commissioner Fischler contacted the French Minister for Agriculture by letter of 23 February 1995 in order to draw his attention to the risk of the recurrence of acts of violence during the 1995 season and of such practices spreading both in France and throughout the Community and in order to request the French Government to take all measures necessary for the fulfilment of its obligations. In conclusion, he pointed out that, should situations similar to that referred to in the letter of formal notice occur during the following season, he would be obliged to propose to the Commission that it deliver a reasoned opinion against the French Republic (Annex IX). (10) On 21 April 1995, the Commission's Director-General for Agriculture also wrote to the Permanent Representative of France to the European Union and pointed out to him that the Commission had received information about warnings and threats which organizations for the protection of producers in Lot-et-Garonne or the Loire region had sent to central purchasing agencies, supermarkets and wholesalers, and conveyed to him his concern about those developments (Annex X). (11) However, on the evening of Thursday, 20 April 1995, further serious incidents occurred in the southwest of France. A group of about 150 demonstrators, claiming to belong to the “Comité de défense des fruits et légumes du Lot-et-Garonne”, stopped nine lorries which were carrying Spanish strawberries at motorway toll booths near Narbonne and sprayed the strawberries with gas in order to render them inedible. Shortly thereafter, they intercepted some other lorries at the Toulouse-South motorway toll booths and burnt their loads, which consisted of fruit. They then attempted to enter the warehouses of a central purchasing agency at Colomiers on the outskirts of Toulouse in order to check the origin of the fruit, but were prevented from doing so by the police. Those incidents triggered a very lively reaction on the part of the Spanish agricultural organizations which threatened to call for a boycott of French products and to carry out similar campaigns to those affecting their products in France. (12) On 5 May 1995, the Commission therefore delivered a reasoned opinion under Article 169 of the EC Treaty, in which it stated that, by failing to take all necessary and proportionate measures in order to prevent actions by individuals from obstructing the free movement of fruit and vegetables, the French Republic had failed to fulfil its obligations under the common organizations of the markets in agricultural products and Article 30 of the EC Treaty, in conjunction with Article 5 of that Treaty. Pursuant to the second paragraph of Article 169 of the Treaty, the Commission also called upon the French Republic to take the measures necessary to comply with that opinion within a period of one month from the date thereof (Annex XI). (13) Nevertheless, on the afternoon of 3 June 1995, three lorries carrying fruit and vegetables from Spain were subjected to acts of violence at Salon-de-Provence, without any intervention by the police. (14) Following these latter incidents and a statement by the new French Minister for Agriculture that, although he disapproved of and condemned those illegal acts, he in no way contemplated action by the police in order to put a stop to them, Commissioner Fischler informed the Minister, by letter of 12 June 1995, that he feared that the Commission had no choice but to bring the matter before the Court of Justice without delay (Annex XII). (15) By letter forwarded to the Commission on 16 June 1995, the French Government sought to show that it had taken and was taking all measures available to it in order to respond effectively to a difficult situation by adapting its preventive and penal instruments to the illegal action being undertaken by certain groups of demonstrators; moreover, those deterrent measures had led to a containment of the acts of violence committed in 1995 (Annex XIII). ( 2 ) (16) However, at the beginning of July, fruit and vegetable producers in Bouches-du-Rhône destroyed some pallets of fruit from Italy and Spain at Châteaurenard.’