The French farmers’ union Jeunes Agriculteurs intends to organize a complete blockade of Paris and its suburbs in order to prevent the supply of any goods to the capital, said organization representative Maxime Buizard on BFMTV.
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“We decided to change our methods and organize a blockade of Paris and the “petite crown” of Paris (the three departments surrounding the capital.) <…> The idea is that not a single truck could supply the capital,” he said.
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According to Buizard, the blockade will begin on Monday night, and farmers intend to control the roads leading into the city “as long as necessary” so that there is a shortage of products there.
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“This will not be a 12 or 15 hour operation, as before, but an action lasting at least five days, which will make it clear to the people of Paris that they need farmers to live, and that the capital does not provide for itself. agricultural areas,” he said.
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A spokesman for Jeunes Agriculteurs added that preparations for a blockade of this scale would take time, so the union would end protests over the weekend.
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He also called the measures proposed the day before by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal insufficient and inconsistent with the scale of the farmers’ protests.
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Earlier, the head of government announced that the authorities “heard and understood” the difficulties faced by farmers. Attal said that the authorities would refuse to increase the diesel tax, which was one of the reasons for the farmers’ protests. He also recalled that France opposes the conclusion of a free trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur countries, which, according to farmers, will create conditions for unfair competition. The prime minister also announced the abolition of a number of bureaucratic procedures and strengthening control over compliance with the Egalim law, according to which product distributors are required to provide fair remuneration to farmers.
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For a week now, farmers have been blocking the main transport routes in France, creating barricades from haystacks and manure heaps. In some communes, protests take place in front of prefectural and administrative buildings. Thus, for several days in a row, farmers watered the fence of the prefecture with manure in the commune of Agen in the south of the country. The day before, they set fire to haystacks and tires dumped in front of her, starting a large fire. On Wednesday, it became known that a mother and her 12-year-old daughter were killed during a protest in Ariège: they were sleeping behind hay barricades on the highway when they were hit by a car.
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According to the French National Federation of Agricultural Trade Unions (FNSEA), more than 72 thousand farmers took part in large-scale protests, and more than 41 thousand tractors were involved in the protests.
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Farmers oppose the import of agricultural products, restrictions on the use of water for irrigation, increasing the cost of diesel fuel, as well as restrictive measures to protect the environment and the growing financial burden on production.
