France plans controls on foreign food imports in bid to end protest by farmers
France’s newly appointed prime minister is implementing controls on foreign food products in order to guarantee “fair competition” amid farmers’ protests.
In his general policy speech at the National Assembly, Gabriel Attal said “the goal is clear: guaranteeing fair competition, especially so regulations that are being applied to (French) farmers are also respected by foreign products”.
He also said food retailers who do not comply with a law meant to ensure a fair share of revenues for farmers will be fined, starting immediately.
Farmers have for days been protesting across France to put pressure on the government to respond to their demands for better remuneration for their produce, less red tape and protection against cheap imports. With protesting farmers camped out yesterday at barricades around Paris, Mr Attal hoped to calm their anger with more concessions following their complaints that growing and rearing food has become too difficult and not sufficiently lucrative. Mr Attal defended the farming sector in his first big speech to parliament laying out his government’s priorities, calling agriculture “our strength, and our pride. Not only because it feeds us in the literal sense but also because it constitutes one of the foundations of our identity, of our traditions”.
The farmers’ campaign for better pay, fewer constraints and lower costs has blown up into a major crisis for Mr Attal in the first month of his new job. Protesters had rejected pro-agriculture measures that Mr Attal announced last week as insufficient.
Protesting farmers encircled
Paris with traffic-snarling barricades on Monday, using hundreds of lumbering tractors and mounds of hay bales to block highways leading to the French capital, which will host the Summer Olympics in six months.
The protesters came prepared for an extended battle, with tents and reserves of food and water. The government announced a deployment of 15,000 police officers, mostly in the Paris region, to stop any effort by the protesters to enter the city.