Sixty-six people were arrested today in the morning in Paris after the sudden blockade by farmers of the Arc de Triomphe with hay bales and tractors, announced by the police.

The farmers they arrived by tractor below this monument to the soldiers who fell in battle on the famous Champs-Élysées around 06:00 (local time, 07:00 Greek time) and briefly blocked traffic, police said.

“We went up this morning to lay a wreath at the Arc de Triomphe to pay tribute to all the farmers who kill themselves,” explained Axel Masson, a livestock farmer in the Loire-et-Cher region in central France.

“The state still doesn’t listen to us,” he added, while the anger of the farming world is felt across Europe.

Shortly after 07:00 (08:00 Greek time), police vehicles had taken up positions under the monument and traffic on the famous boulevard Sainte-Élysée had not yet been restored. The demonstration under the Arc de Triomphe ended around 09:40 (local time), according to an AFP reporter.

Other actions also took place near Paris: four tractors blocked a ring road exit and others took up positions at the height of another access to this ring road that surrounds the capital, according to police.

“A procession of tractors is on its way to the palace of Versailles”, a few tens of kilometers from Paris, where a police force is waiting for them, the same source added.

Among the 66 arrested are Patrick Legra, a well-known executive of the Agricultural Coordination, of France’s second largest farmers’ union, which organized today’s demonstration.

The French union Agrarian Coordination is carrying out an action around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris this morning blocking the upper part of the Champs-Elysées with straw bales and tractors, an AFP reporter found.

Axel Masson, a farmer in the Loire-et-Cher region in central France, told AFP that around a hundred farmers had gathered since 05:00 (Greece time) this morning “calmly and respectfully”.

Shortly after 08:00 (Greece time), police vehicles had taken up positions under the Arc de Triomphe, while traffic at the top of the famous Champs-Élysées avenue was still blocked.

Around 50 trade unionists remained in the area, surrounded by police officers. Around ten tractors of the Agricultural Coordination, with a French flag, were parked near the monument, according to the AFP reporter.

The union had announced via Platform X that it was mobilizing “to save our French agriculture” ahead of the final weekend of the Agricultural Fair being organized in the capital. “Agrarian Coordination is symbolically and peacefully occupying Etoile,” writes the union in X citing the name of the square where the Arc de Triomphe is located.

The union is calling for “quick action to save the 45% of our farms that are in financial distress”.

“The State still does not listen to us. At 6 a.m. we were going to leave in peace. We were going to collect them and leave the place clean,” but the police prevented them from leaving, according to him.