The French farmers today began a second day of road blockades around Paris and elsewhere in the country, stepping up pressure on Emmanuel Macron’s government, which is promising “new measures” to deal with this new social flare-up.

In the neighbor Belgium also, Belgian farmers Angered by rising costs and reacting to European Union environmental policies and cheap food imports, they plan to block access to the Belgian container port of Zeebrugge from today, financial newspaper De Tijd reported.

Protesters plan to block access to this North Sea port, the country’s second largest, from 15:00 (Greece time), according to the newspaper, which cited protest organizers and police and added that the lockout may last until tomorrow, wednesday, night.

Belgian farmers also blocked traffic this morning near the border with the Netherlands on the E19 highway as a convoy of tractors headed for the port of Antwerp, state broadcaster RTBF reported.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexandre de Croix is ​​due to meet with farming associations today.

At France, the farmers have since yesterday, Monday, blocked eight road axes around the capital, monitored by the forces of order that have been mobilized en masse. They demand, as elsewhere in Europe, an improvement in their income and some of them, less environmental regulation.

However, as Agence France-Presse points out, despite union threats the foretold “siege” of Paris has so far not materialized, as airports have not been blocked nor has Rungis’ wholesale fresh produce market, the world’s largest, which supplies the region of Paris.

A convoy of about 200 tractors, which left southern France, nevertheless made its way to this market this morning, where it is expected to arrive in the afternoon.

In total, more than a quarter of France’s prefectures (30) are affected by this mobilization of rural anger, which threatens to develop into a new social crisis after the great mobilization against the increase in the retirement age.