French Farmers Stage Blockades on Paris Approach Roads
French farmers have deployed tractors and trucks to obstruct roads nationwide, now threatening a major blockade around Paris demanding improved working conditions.
Their dissatisfaction stems from low incomes, regulatory burdens, and environmental laws that they argue disadvantage them against neighboring countries with laxer standards.
Intensifying actions, farmers aim to create eight traffic chokepoints leading to Paris. In anticipation, the government has dispatched 15,000 police and gendarmes, with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin instructing moderation but warning against targeting strategic locations such as government offices, tax buildings, grocery stores, or blocking imported goods.
Critical infrastructure like Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports and the Rungis food market are to be particularly shielded.
With European Parliament elections approaching in June, posing a significant test for President Macron's administration, the government is keen to contain farmer unrest. Prime Minister Attal, visiting a farm, sought to quell the crisis with additional measures over previous concessions.
Farmers' union leader Rousseau, set to meet Attal, expressed the desire to pressure the government rather than disrupt the public. Despite some roadblocks being removed over the weekend, farmers resumed their protests early Monday, with plans to encircle Paris by the afternoon.
The protesting also saw unexpected actions like soup being thrown at the Mona Lisa to highlight agriculture's plight, questioning the prioritization of art over sustainable food.
Meanwhile, French taxi drivers launched their own protest decrying poor pay for patient transportation.
In a parallel movement, Belgian farmers have escalated protests, blocking a major motorway and causing a football match delay – their grievances echoing those in France and mirrored by recent farmer protests in Germany, Poland, Romania, and the Netherlands.
Intensifying actions, farmers aim to create eight traffic chokepoints leading to Paris. In anticipation, the government has dispatched 15,000 police and gendarmes, with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin instructing moderation but warning against targeting strategic locations such as government offices, tax buildings, grocery stores, or blocking imported goods.
Critical infrastructure like Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports and the Rungis food market are to be particularly shielded.
With European Parliament elections approaching in June, posing a significant test for President Macron's administration, the government is keen to contain farmer unrest. Prime Minister Attal, visiting a farm, sought to quell the crisis with additional measures over previous concessions.
Farmers' union leader Rousseau, set to meet Attal, expressed the desire to pressure the government rather than disrupt the public. Despite some roadblocks being removed over the weekend, farmers resumed their protests early Monday, with plans to encircle Paris by the afternoon.
The protesting also saw unexpected actions like soup being thrown at the Mona Lisa to highlight agriculture's plight, questioning the prioritization of art over sustainable food.
Meanwhile, French taxi drivers launched their own protest decrying poor pay for patient transportation.
In a parallel movement, Belgian farmers have escalated protests, blocking a major motorway and causing a football match delay – their grievances echoing those in France and mirrored by recent farmer protests in Germany, Poland, Romania, and the Netherlands.
