Protesting farmers gather with tractors to blockade the A16 highway, near Beauvais, some hundred kilometres north of Paris, on 28 January 2024, part of a nationwide campaign of protests called by several farmers unions on pay, tax and regulations.
- French farmers are planning
to stage an indefinite protest in Paris to demand better working conditions and
pay. - They are planning to set up
a “siege” around the city to block traffic and access to the capital. - The farmers are frustrated
with the government’s lack of action in addressing their concerns and are
calling for urgent reforms.
French
farmers will launch an indefinite “siege” of Paris beginning Monday,
choking off major highways and moving toward the capital as they demand better
working conditions.
For days,
nationwide protests have flared in Europe’s largest agriculture producer, with
farmers angered in part by red tape and environmental policies they say are
hurting their bottom lines and rendering them unable to compete with less
stringent neighbours.
Across
France, farmers have used tractors and trucks to block roads and jam traffic.
They plan to step up their pressure campaign by establishing eight chokepoints
along the major arteries to Paris on Monday afternoon.
The
government plans to mobilise 15 000 police and paramilitary gendarmes in
response, with the forces told to show “moderation”.
“We
don’t intend to allow government buildings, or tax collection buildings, or
grocery stores to be damaged or trucks transporting foreign produce to be
stopped. Obviously, that is unacceptable,” French Interior Minister Gerald
Darmanin said ahead of the planned siege.
He said
President Emmanuel Macron had instructed the security operation to ensure both
Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport to the north and Orly to the south remained
open, and the Rungis international wholesale food market south of Paris
continued to operate.
Police and
gendarmes are also under orders to prevent any incursion into Paris itself,
said Darmanin.
The
government has been trying to keep discontent among farmers from spreading
ahead of European Parliament elections later this year, which are being seen as
a key test for Macron’s government.
During a
visit to a farm on Sunday, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal scrambled to address
farmers’ concerns, after a raft of concessions announced Friday failed to
defuse the crisis.
“I
want us to clarify things and see what extra measures we can take” to meet
farmers’ complaints that they face unfair competition, he said.
Attal
agreed it was not right that French farmers were forbidden by environmental
regulations from using certain products that neighbouring countries, such as
Italy, still had the right to use.
Farmers
have described being “fed-up” with their conditions, including
falling wages, low pensions and mountains of red tape.
‘Change the
software’
Arnaud
Rousseau, leader of one of the main farmers’ unions, FNSEA, said on Sunday that
his members expect much more from the government.
“What
we need are decisions that we think are going to change the software,” he
told farmers as he visited a group blocking the A16 motorway north of Paris.
Although
some roadblocks were lifted over the weekend, many motorways across France were
still barred on Sunday.
The same
day, two activists hurled soup at the glass protecting the Mona Lisa painting
at the Louvre Museum in a stunt to call attention to the agriculture industry.
This image grab taken from AFPTV footage shows two environmental activists from the collective dubbed “Riposte Alimentaire” (Food Retaliation) hurling soup at Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” (La Joconde) painting at the Louvre museum in Paris on 28 January 2024. Two protesters on 28 January 2024 hurled soup at the bullet-proof glass protecting Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” in Paris, demanding the right to “healthy and sustainable food”, an AFP journalist said. It is the latest attack on the masterpiece in the French capital’s Louvre museum, after someone threw a custard pie at it in May 2022, but its thick glass casing ensured it came to no harm.
“What
is more important? Art or the right to healthy and sustainable food,” the
activists asked, standing in front of the painting and speaking in turn.
“Your
agricultural system is sick. Our farmers are dying at work,” they said,
before security cleared the room.
FNSEA and
the Jeunes Agricultueurs (Young Farmers) plan to start their siege of Paris
around 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Monday.
Further
south, officials in the city of Lyon said they were expecting farmers to stage
roadblock protests, as well.
Belgian farmers
mobilise
In
neighbouring Belgium, farmers have stepped up their own campaign, blocking a
key motorway on Sunday as they, too, demand better conditions.
Dozens of
tractors drove at a crawl through an interchange, halting traffic on the E42
motorway just north of Namur in the south of the country.
Tractors pass by a fire lit by farmers during a farmers’ protest at the Daussoulx interchange between highways E40 and E411, near Namur, organised by the Federation of young Walloon farmers (FJA), on 28 January 2024. Farmers protests across Europe are growing as they demand better conditions to grow produce and maintain a proper income.
Farmers
protesting outside a Belgian football stadium also delayed a match between
Racing Genk and Sint-Truiden by 30 minutes.
The
grievances of the Belgian farmers are similar to those of their French
colleagues.
It has
become “impossible to earn a decent wage,” said Pierre d’Hulst, spokesperson
for the FJA federation of young farmers, which organised the traffic protest.
In recent
weeks, similar farmers’ protests have also mushroomed in Germany, Poland,
Romania, and the Netherlands, with far-right populist politicians trying to
capitalise on the anger to rally against free trade agreements.
While
visiting a farm in northern France over the weekend, Marine Le Pen of the
far-right National Rally party called for “allowing farmers to have an
adequate income that allows them to live”.
“Stop
free trade agreements which obviously put them in competition with products
that are not subject to the same burdens,” she added.
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