Highways blocked and hay bales set on fire as producers demand more support as well as restrictions on cheap imports
JOSSIGNY, France (Reuters) — Farmers set bales of hay ablaze to partly block access to Toulouse airport in southwestern France Jan. 30 and parked tractors across highways near Paris as they lobbied the government for help to make a living from their work.
Farmers, who also want measures against cheap imports, are looking for more support from new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who was to spell out his policy plans later that day, and from the agriculture minister, who was also due to make an announcement.
“Whatever happens, we are determined to go to the end,” farmer Jean-Baptiste Bongard said, as crowds of farmers huddled around small fires on a highway in Jossigny, near Paris, that was blocked by tractors in the early hours.
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“If the movement needs to last a month, then it will last a month,” said Bongard, who took over the family business in July and finds it hard to compete with foreign producers who do not follow the same regulations.
A huge placard at the protest, “Let’s save agriculture”, was attached to one vehicle.
In Longvilliers, also near Paris, both highways were blocked with tractors and bales of hay, with other traffic detoured as a line of cars snaked into the distance.
The regional prefect said farmers had blocked the main access to Toulouse airport, but people could still gain access via nearby parking lots. BFM TV said stacks of hay and tires had been set on fire at a roundabout in front of the airport.
Farmers in France, the EU’s biggest agricultural producer, say they are not being paid enough and are choked by excessive regulation on environmental protection.
The protests have been going on for more than a week, but increased in intensity on Jan. 29, leading up to an EU summit Feb. 1 when they hoped their action and those of other farmers in Europe would grab the attention of politicians focused on aid for Ukraine and the bloc’s budget.
The French protests follow similar action in other European countries, including Germany and Poland, ahead of European Parliament elections in June in which the far right, for whom farmers represent a growing constituency, is seeking gains.
In Belgium, farmers angry with EU environmental policies and cheap imports, planned to block access roads to the Zeebrugge container port in Belgium.
The French government, wary of seeing protests escalate and with an eye on the European elections, has already dropped plans to gradually reduce subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised to ease environmental regulations.
The government will also push its EU peers to agree to ease regulations on fallow farmland. President Emmanuel Macron was set to discuss it with EU officials and leaders in the margins of the summit in Brussels.
Attal, who will spell out his policy plans as new prime minister in front of the National Assembly, is set to mention the crisis, but officials said more concrete steps should be unveiled by Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau.
Franck Laborde, who heads the AGPM association of maize producers, said an increase in environmental rules “needs to stop.”
He said one particular point of concern is imports of cheap poultry from Ukraine, where farmers do not follow the same rules.
“We are opening our doors wide in Europe to Ukrainian production so that they can finance the war. This is not acceptable. Agriculture is being sacrificed on the altar of war,” he said.
