By Athena Papakosta

Almost 1,000 farmers and 500 tractors are still blocking Paris having managed to block all eight motorways leading to the French capital. The new prime minister of France, Gabriel Atalyesterday promised a new series of additional measures with farmers in blockades around Paris making it clear that their protests will intensify unless there is more government support for the agricultural sector and better prices for their produce.

For new prime minister Gabriel Atal, the agricultural sector is France’s strength and pride, and he has promised that Paris will pressure Brussels to exempt French farmers from fallow rules, announced more aid to producers and a emergency fund for winegrowers.

A section of farmers remain angry and vow that Paris will starve with the head of the farmers’ union, FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau, rejecting such statements by clarifying that “our aim is not for the French to starve but for us to feed them”.

The peasants of France they talk about a fight for their survival and ask the French government for better incomes, fewer restrictions and lower production costs.

An additional 200 farmers from the south of France were expected in Paris to block the Renzis market, but police stopped them in central France as authorities were instructed to prevent any blockade of Europe’s largest market at a time when first problems in food deliveries are now a fact.

And while France is boiling the… effervescence has for weeks taken pan-European proportions with farmers taking battle positions in view of tomorrow Summit in Brussels.

In fact, in Belgium, farmers blocked yesterday, Tuesday, the country’s second port, the port of Zeibrugge, denying access to it, expressing outrage at rising costs, the European Union’s environmental policies and cheap food imports. At the same time, they are preparing for the Belgian capital, the heart of the European Union, to protest as the “27” meet there tomorrow.

The Prime Minister of the country, Alexander de Cro, tried to answer their requests by emphasizing that “the agricultural sector is the backbone of society and an important part of our economy”.

Having already been preceded by the Germans and the Poles, the Spaniards are also joining the dance who will start their mobilizations from February protesting against the “suffocating” bureaucracy “created by European regulations”. At the same time, the tone of anger and rage is maintained by the farmers of Italy by blocking a highway outside Rome.