Angry French farmers block highways in bid to step up pressure on government

Long lines of tractors blocked highways near Paris and across France on Monday, as angry farmers sought to put pressure on the government to do more to help them weather inflation, compete with cheap imports and make a living.

France's 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 seen making gains.

"We're here because we're unhappy with agricultural policies," Pascal Desprez, a 65-year-old grain farmer who has been working in agriculture for 42 years, said on the A10 highway near Paris.

Farmers, he said, want President Emmanuel Macron to step in - including to loosen regulations.

"We're calling on Macron to put in place more realistic norms," he added.

The government, wary of seeing the protests escalate and with an eye on European elections, has already dropped plans to gradually reduce subsidies on agricultural diesel and promised to ease environmental regulations.

Slogans are displayed on tractors on the A16 highway as French farmers try to reach Paris during a protest over price pressures, taxes and green regulation, grievances shared by farmers across Europe, in Beauvais, France, January 29, 2024. The slogans read "our end will be your hunger" and "I love my job but I would like to make a living from it". REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq

France also said it would push its European Union peers to agree to ease regulations on fallow farmland.

But farmers' organisations said that was not enough.

"Our objective is to put pressure on the government, so that we can quickly find a solution for a way out of the crisis," Arnaud Rousseau, head of the powerful farmers' union FNSEA, said on RTL radio.

The FNSEA said farmers had set up eight roadblocks in the wider Paris region.

In Longvilliers, southwest of Paris, Reuters footage showed tractors, some with trailers, blocking the A10 highway in both directions, with traffic diverted to smaller roads.

Tractors queue on the A16 highway as French farmers try to reach Paris during a protest over price pressures, taxes and green regulation, grievances shared by farmers across Europe, in Beauvais, France, January 29, 2024. REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq

Many farmers had attached flags and banners to their tractors. One tractor was carrying a sign that read "Angry farmer", another read: "Farmer: when I was young I dreamed of it and today I'm dying of it."

EU TALKS

Speaking at a blockade near Beauvais north of Paris, Regis Desrumaux, head of the FDSEA union in the Oise region, said the farmers' concerns are broad and include cheap imports, fallow land and red tape.

Macron will make a push for more pro-farming policies at a summit of EU leaders on Thursday, Farming Minister Marc Fesneau said.

Farmers must meet certain conditions to receive EU subsidies - including a requirement to devote 4% of farmland to "non-productive" areas where nature can recover. That can be done by leaving land lying fallow.

Two EU officials told Reuters the EU's executive Commission was looking into changing the fallow land rule, as requested by France, among other options to respond to the farmers' concerns.

The Commission had already temporarily exempted farmers from the rule in response to the Ukraine war and food security concerns.

Unhappy Belgian farmers also blocked highways in southern Belgium and parked tractors near to the EU Parliament in Brussels. Some 30-40 tractors were parked up on the E19 road just south of the Belgian capital on Monday morning, many farmers having spent the night sleeping in their cabs.