Farmers say the protests, now in their second week after starting in the southwest, will continue as long as their demands are not met.
The French farmers They blocked boulevards and threw boxes of imported goods today, demanding urgent action on low producer prices, green transition regulations and free trade policies, as the growing protests move closer to Paris.
Farmers say the protests, now in their second week after starting in the southwest, will continue as long as their demands are not met, posing the first major challenge to new Prime Minister Gabriel Atal.
“All possibilities remain on the table,” Arnaud Gueillot, the head of the Jeunes Agriculteurs (Young Farmers) union, told reporters when asked about reports that farmers could start disrupting traffic in Paris as early as tomorrow.
French intelligence services have warned the government that regional farmers’ unions have called on their members to gather in the French capital, Le Parisien newspaper reported and BFM TV broadcast.
Time is pressing even further for the French government because “there is a risk that the unions will escape if the wait is too long,” the intelligence services warned in a memo obtained by AFP, judging “the real risks of disrupting public order”.
As Atal met the ministers of Rural Development, Ecological Transition and Economy this morning with the aim of announcing concrete proposals tomorrow, farmers used hay bales and tractors to block central avenues along France, the European Union’s biggest agricultural producer. .
“We always have more rules to follow, we are always being asked more and more and we earn less and less. We can’t live off our work anymore,” said 61-year-old Jean-Jacques Pesquerel of the Calvados Coordination Rurale union.
Crates of tomatoes, cabbages and cauliflowers, which a group of farmers said were imported, were scattered along the A7 motorway, which links Marseille and Lyon, France’s second and third largest cities respectively. On the southwestern edge of Paris, dozens of tractors marched through the morning rush hour.
Peasants organized 77 blockades almost everywhere in France, according to a count by the FNSEA association. In the Ile-de-France region, FNSEA and Jeunes agriculteurs have called on their members to gather tomorrow “on the major roads around the capital”.
“The ball is in the court of the government”, which depends on it “to do everything to avoid a paralysis of the country”, assessed Arno Gegio.
The powerful farming union FNSEA late last night handed the government a list of their demands, including better implementation of a law designed to protect producer prices.
In addition, the union called for the continuation of diesel tax breaks for farm vehicles, direct payment of EU agricultural subsidies, guarantees on health and climate-related insurance claims and direct aid to wine producers and organic farms. products.
“Urgent responses are needed,” said FNSEA head Arnaud Rousseau.
Source :Skai
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