FRENCH FARMERS LAY ‘SIEGE’ TO PARIS IN GROWING STANDOFF OVER WAGES, RULES
Irate farmers deployed tractors to block the main roads in and out of Paris on Monday in an intensifying standoff that has left the capital girding for disruptions and has become the first major test for France’s newly appointed prime minister, Gabriel Attal.
Last week Attal rushed to farming regions in the south of France and offered a series of rapid concessions as he tried to head off widening demonstrations on roadways from farmers nationwide. But the steps failed to appease many of them.
Many farmers complain that imports are undercutting their livelihood, that wages are too low, and that regulation from both the government and the European Union has become suffocating.
But their concrete demands are so varied that the protests present an increasingly precarious moment for the government, one that defies easy solutions.
“I am determined to move forward,” Attal said Sunday after visiting farmers in the Indre-et-Loire area of central France. But he also warned that “there are things that cannot change overnight.”
Hundreds of farmers have now converged on the French capital for what they termed a “siege” of undetermined length, a major escalation after a week of protests and roadblocks that have gripped the country.
Attal, who met with the main farmer unions Monday evening, is expected to make new announcements today in a policy speech.
But it was unclear whether he would convince farmers to pack up the makeshift camps that they had just set up at highway ramps, gas stations and rest areas around the capital.
The protesters have erected barricades on eight major roads within 5 to 25 miles around Paris, using hulking tractors and bales of hay to block traffic, setting up tents, electric generators and portable toilets.
Miles of traffic jams built up on some roads around the capital, but disruptions to Paris have otherwise been limited so far. The main unions said that they did not want to completely blockade the city.
“Our goal isn’t to bother the French or ruin their life,” Arnaud Rousseau, the head of the FNSEA, France’s largest farmers union, told RTL radio. “Our goal is to put pressure on the government.”
Authorities deployed 15,000 police officers and gendarmes across France to secure the protest. President Emmanuel Macron’s government has tread carefully so far in its response to the movement, which enjoys support from more than 80 percent of the public, according to opinion polls.
“We’re not here for a test of strength,” Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said Sunday.
Darmanin said security forces would adopt a “defensive position” to prevent farmers from entering large cities, blocking airports or disrupting Rungis, one of the world’s largest wholesale food markets, just south of Paris.
Attal has already promised to simplify bureaucratic regulations, rapidly deliver emergency aid and enforce laws meant to guarantee a living wage for farmers in price negotiations with retailers and distributors. The government also scrapped plans to reduce subsidies on the diesel fuel used in trucks and other machinery.